Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

1Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts

By Frank R. Stockton

Buccaneers is non-fiction, a highly readable history of how piracy began and spread throughout the region in response to the plundering of Spanish colonialism. It is written with great flair for the dramatic by the author of <em>The Lady or the Tiger?</em><br><br> If you care to read along while listening, the online text features a facsimile version of <em>Buccaneers & Pirates</em> that includes an antique map of the Caribbean which is a nice reference for readers and listeners for islands’ names, ports, hideaways, and buried treasure! (Summary by Denny Sayers)

2Pomona's Travels

By Frank R. Stockton

Pomona and Jone of Rudder Grange fame travel to England and Scotland. Along the way, Pomona tangles with wild pigs, haymaking, hotels great and small, Pullman cars, comparison-makers, and a Duchess. She makes two matches and - in her usual, unorthodox way - stag hunts and attends a knighting. Pomona is as hilarious as ever, if a bit more rounded off on the edges.

3Rudder Grange

By Frank R. Stockton

This book presents a number of short, comedic sketches of a country life in middle America in the late 1800s. The hilarious twists and turns endear our adorable, naive married couple to the reader; and the orphan servant Pomona - dear, odd, funny Pomona! - is the focus of several of the stories. Imagine a honeymoon in a lunatic asylum, and you’ve got Rudder Grange!

4Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts (version 2)

By Frank R. Stockton

Buccaneers and Pirates of our Coasts is a non-fiction, rollicking story of the origins of piracy and of the famous pirates of the coasts of the United States. The stories don't cast pirates in the glowing light of modern day renditions - in Stockton's stories, pirates are bad guys! - but the dramatic style makes them good fun to read, anyway! (Summary by Sibella Denton)

5Great Stone of Sardis

By Frank R. Stockton

The home of Roland Clewe, a small house plainly furnished, but good enough for a bachelor's quarters, stood not half a mile from the station, and near it were the extensive buildings which he called his Works. Here were laboratories, large machine-shops in which many men were busy at all sorts of strange contrivances in metal and other materials; and besides other small edifices there was a great round tower --like structure, with smooth iron walls thirty feet high and without windows, and which was lighted and ventilated from the top. This was Clewe's special workshop; and besides old Samuel Block and such workmen as were absolutely necessary and could be trusted, few people ever entered it but himself. The industries in the various buildings were diverse, some of them having no apparent relation to the others. Each of them was expected to turn out something which would revolutionize something or other in this world, but it was to his lens-house that Roland Clewe gave, in these days, his special attention. Here a great enterprise was soon to begin, more important in his eyes than anything else which had engaged human endeavor. . . .

6Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales

By Frank R. Stockton

A collection of nine enchanting short stories filled with curious beasts and unexpected endings. Included are The Bee-Man of Orn; The Griffin and the Minor Canon; Old Pipes and the Dryad; The Queen's Museum; Christmas Before Last: Or, The Fruit of the Fragile Palm; Prince Hassak's March; The Battle of the Third Cousins; The Banished King; and The Philopena(summary by Gryphon Perkins)

7Kate Bonnet

By Frank R. Stockton

"She carried a fishing rod and line, and her name was Kate Bonnet. She was a bright-faced, quick-moving young person, and apparently did not expect to catch many fish, for she had no basket in which to carry away her finny prizes." It was the first quarter of the seventeenth century in Barbados, and Mistress Kate was the pretty daughter of a notorious pirate with her eye on a young, handsome and prosperous farmer. This is an account of the fictional daughter of infamous crony of Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet (whose only real-life daughter was named Mary). - Summary by Lynne Thompson

This is a collection of original and interesting fairy tales. We have here princes and princesses, pirates, wizards, and all the other ingredients for entertaining stories for kids. - Summary by Carolin