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Aborigines - Anton Chekov (1894-1905) - Short Story
Chekhov writes, "At lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner." Chekhov links

About Love - Anton Chekov (1894-1905) - Short Story
Chekhov writes, "Ivan Lyashkevsky, a lieutenant of Polish origin, who has at some time or other been wounded in the head, and now lives on his pension in a town in one of the southern provinces, is sitting in his lodgings at the open window talking to Franz Stepanitch Finks, the town architect, who has come in to see him for a minute." Chekhov links

Across the Plains - Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
Stevenson writes, "It was, if I remember rightly, five o'clock when we were all signalled to be present at the Ferry Depot of the railroad. An emigrant ship had arrived at New York on the Saturday night, another on the Sunday morning, our own on Sunday afternoon, a fourth early on Monday..." Stevenson Links | Article

Aesop's Fables - Aesop (620?-560?)
Collection of beast fables long transmitted through oral tradition. Aesop bio | Aesop links

Affair of State, An - Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) - Short Story
"Paris had just heard of the disaster of Sedan. The Republic was proclaimed. All France was panting from a madness that lasted until the time of the commonwealth. Everybody was playing at soldier from one end of the country to the other." Maupassant Links

After the Theatre - Anton Chekov (1894-1905) - Short Story
Chekhov writes, "As soon as she reached her own room she threw off her dress, let down her hair, and in her petticoat and white dressing-jacket hastily sat down to the table to write a letter like Tatyana's." Chekhov links

Agnes Gray - Anne Bronte (1820-1849) - Novel
Bronte writes, "All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut."

Al Aaraaf (1829) - Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) - Poem
Poe writes, "O! nothing earthly save the ray / (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye..." Poe links

Alexander's Bridge - Willa Cather (1875-1947) - Novel
Willa Cather writes, "Late one brilliant April afternoon Professor Lucius Wilson stood at the head of Chestnut Street, looking about him with the pleased air of a man of taste who does not very often get to Boston." Cather links

Alice Doane's Appeal - Nathanial Hawthorne (1804-1864) - Short Story
"On a pleasant afternoon of June, it was my good fortune to be the companion of two young ladies in a walk. The direction of our course being left to me, I led them neither to Legge's Hill, nor to the Cold Spring, nor to the rude shores and old batteries of the Neck, nor yet to Paradise; though if the latter place were rightly named, my fair friends would have been at home there." Hawthorne links

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Psedonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) - Novel
Lewis Carroll writes, "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it..." Carroll links

Alone (1830) - Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) - Poem
Poe writes, "From childhood's hour I have not been / As others were..." Poe links

Ambitious Guest, The - Nathanial Hawthorne (1804-1864) - Short Story
"One September night a family had gathered round their hearth, and piled it high with the driftwood of mountain streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing down the precipice. Up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze." Hawthorne links

American, The - Henry James (1843-1916) - Novel
James writes, "On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was reclining at his ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied the centre of the Salon Carre, in the Museum of the Louvre."

An Actor's End - Anton Chekov (1894-1905) - Short Story
Chekhov writes, "Shtchiptsov, the 'heavy father' and 'good-hearted simpleton,' a tall and thick-set old man, not so much distinguished by his talents as an actor as by his exceptional physical strength, had a desperate quarrel with the manager during the performance, and just when the storm of words was at its height felt as though something had snapped in his chest." Chekhov links

Angel of the Odd, The (1850) - Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) - Short Story
Poe writes, "I had just consummated an unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic truffe formed not the least important item, and was sitting alone in the dining-room, with my feet upon the fender, and at my elbow a small table which I had rolled up to the fire, and upon which were some apologies for dessert, with some miscellaneous bottles of wine, spirit, and liqueur." Poe links

Annabel Lee (1850) - Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) - Poem
Poe writes, "It was many and many a year ago, / In a kingom by the sea..." Poe links

Artist of the Beautiful, The - Nathanial Hawthorne (1804-1864) - Short Story
"An elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing along the street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy evening into the light that fell across the pavement from the window of a small shop." Hawthorne links

Assignation, The - Edgar Allan Poe - Short Story
Poe writes, "Ill-fated and mysterious man!--bewildered in the brilliancy of thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth!" Poe links

Author to Her Book, The - Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) - Poem
Bradstreet writes, "Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain, / Who after birth did'st by my side remain, / Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true..." Bradstreet Links

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) - Autobiography
"Dear son: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors."

Awakening, The - Kate Chopin (1851-1904) - Novel
"A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over..."