WERWOLVES AND VAMPIRES AND GHOULS from Werwolves (1912) by Elliott O’Donnell THROUGHOUT the Middle Ages, and even in the seventeenth century, trials for lycanthropy were of common occurrence in France. Among the most famous were those of the Grandillon family in the Jura, in 1598; that of the tailor of Châlons; of Roulet, in Angers; […]
Classic Articles on Writing
THE WRITER HIMSELF by Robert Saunders Dowst
THE WRITER HIMSELF by Robert Saunders Dowst Critical Faculty—Cultivation of Genius—Observation and Information—Open-mindedness—Attitude Toward Life—Prejudice and Provincialism—The Social Question—Reading—Imagination. Accessible as are the data of the fiction writer, the facts and possibilities of life, their very accessibility places him under strict necessity to sift the useful from the useless in search for the pregnant theme. […]
Talking About Realism by Robert Louis Stevenson
Talking About Realism by Robert Louis Stevenson Style is the invariable mark of any master; and for the student who does not aspire so high as to be numbered with the giants, it is still the one quality in which he may improve himself at will. Passion, wisdom, creative force, the power of mystery or […]
Book, Authors, and Hats by Mark Twain
BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND HATS by Mark Twain ADDRESS AT THE PILGRIMS’ CLUB LUNCHEON, GIVEN IN HONOR OF Mr. CLEMENS AT THE SAVOY HOTEL, LONDON, JUNE 25, 1907. Mr. Birrell, M.P., Chief-Secretary for Ireland, in introducing Mr. Clemens said: “We all love Mark Twain, and we are here to tell him so. One more point—all […]
Fox-women by Elliott O’Donnell
Fox-women an excerpt from Byways of Ghost-Land 1911 by Elliott O’Donnell Very different from this were-wolf, though also belonging to the great family of elementals, are the fox-women of Japan and China, about which much has been written, but about which, apparently, very little is known. In China the fox was (and in remote parts […]
The Beginning of My Youth by Leo Tolstoy
WHAT I CONSIDER TO HAVE BEEN THE BEGINNING OF MY YOUTH I have said that my friendship with Dimitri opened up for me a new view of my life and of its aim and relations. The essence of that view lay in the conviction that the destiny of man is to strive for moral improvement, […]
Why The Blind Man in Ancient Times was Made a Poet by William B. Yeats
Why The Blind Man in Ancient Times was Made a Poet by William B. Yeats A description in the Iliad or the Odyssey, unlike one in the Æneid or in most modern writers, is the swift and natural observation of a man as he is shaped by life. It is a refinement of the primary […]
About Books that Might Be Written by H. G. Wells
OF A BOOK UNWRITTEN by H. G. Wells Accomplished literature is all very well in its way, no doubt, but much more fascinating to the contemplative man are the books that have not been written. These latter are no trouble to hold; there are no pages to turn over. One can read them in bed […]
How Shakspere Came to Write the ‘Tempest’ by Rudyard Kipling
To the Editor of the Spectator. SIR:—Your article on ‘Landscape and Literature’ in the Spectator of June 18th has the following, among other suggestive passages:—“But whence came the vision of the enchanted island in the ‘Tempest’? It had no existence in Shakspere’s world, but was woven out of such stuff as dreams are made of.” […]
RUPERT BROOKE: by Henry James
RUPERT BROOKE: by Henry James Nothing more generally or more recurrently solicits us, in the light of literature, I think, than the interest of our learning how the poet, the true poet, and above all the particular one with whom we may for the moment be concerned, has come into his estate, asserted and preserved […]
WHAT IS A WERWOLF? by Elliott O’Donnell
WHAT IS A WERWOLF? by Elliott O’Donnell WHAT is a werwolf? To this there is no one very satisfactory reply. There are, indeed, so many diverse views held with regard to the nature and classification of werwolves, their existence is so keenly disputed, and the subject is capable of being regarded from so many standpoints, […]
Animal Ghosts or Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter by Elliot O’Donnell
The following excerpt is the Preface to the book Animal Ghosts or Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter by Elliot O’Donnell. O’Donnell was born in 1872. He worked at one time as a police officer but later became a “ghost hunter.” This piece [as are all of his works (to the best of my knowledge)] is non-fiction.
III. ON THE ART OF POETRY By Aristotle
A third difference in these arts is in the manner in which each kind of object is represented. Given both the same means and the same kind of object for imitation, one may either (1) speak at one moment in narrative and at another in an assumed character, as Homer does; or (2) one may […]
Solitude by Henry David Thoreau
Solitude By Henry David Thoreau This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as […]
INTELLECT By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in the chemical tables, positively to that which stands below it. Water dissolves wood and iron and salt; air dissolves water; electric fire dissolves air, but the intellect dissolves fire, gravity, laws, method, and the subtlest unnamed relations of nature in its resistless […]