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The sea girl

Ray Cummings

The Sea Girl by Ray Cummings is a science fiction novel written in the early 20th century. Set in a near-future 1990 of sub-sea freighters and airliners, it pits humanity against a baffling undersea menace as oceans mysteriously recede and ships vanish without a trace. The story centers on navigator Geoffry Grant, the driven oceanographer Dr. Plantet, his practical daughter Polly, and the dreamer Arturo, who glimpses a girl inside a strange metallic globe beneath the waves. Their intertwined paths lead to a daring deep-sea expedition and an uncanny encounter with a “sea girl” on a remote Micronesian atoll. The opening of the novel follows escalating Pacific disasters, a glimpse of a luminous undersea globe with a young woman’s face, and worldwide anomalies—abnormal tides, quakes, and volcanoes venting steam—culminating in Dr. Plantet’s stark conclusion that Earth’s honeycombed crust is draining the oceans and that a hidden human-like civilization may be rising to challenge the surface. As governments mobilize and censorship lifts, he builds the Dolphin, a revolutionary craft rated to two thousand fathoms, and sets out with Grant and Polly to scout the Pacific deeps. On the eve of departure, Arturo vanishes, leaving a note and secretly flying to the reported “mermaid” atoll, where he meets a shy, intelligent sea girl and begins to win her trust. Meanwhile, the Dolphin searches westward across the basin, finds no enemy sign, then receives Arturo’s urgent midnight call to rendezvous at the island. The section closes with Arturo waiting by a cave on the moonlit shore after the girl slips back into the water’s darkness. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

France in eighteen hundred and two : Described in a series of contemporary letters

Henry Redhead Yorke

"France in eighteen hundred and two : Described in a series of contemporary…." by Henry Redhead Yorke is a historical travel narrative in letters written in the early 19th century. It presents an English observer’s on‑the‑spot account of France during the Consulate, tracing a journey from Calais to Paris and reflecting on the social and political aftermath of the Revolution. Expect sharp commentary on bureaucracy, policing, military dominance, and moral tone, alongside vivid descriptions of ruined churches, emptied châteaux, beggar‑crowded towns, and the everyday realities of travel. The opening of this volume begins with Richard Davey’s introduction and the editor’s note explaining the rediscovery and pruning of Yorke’s scarce letters, sketching his path from youthful radicalism to a chastened liberalism after imprisonment, and framing the letters as a critique of Revolutionary excess, Napoleonic spoliation, and cultural decline. Yorke’s first letters then narrate his landing at Calais—petty passport ordeals, a squalid cabaret, and a frank soldier’s view that the army fights for “glory and plenty,” not liberty—followed by a portrait of humane municipal leaders who spared Calais from Terror, contrasted with Joseph Le Bon’s atrocities elsewhere. He details travel logistics and costs, then moves post by post through Boulogne, Montreuil, Abbeville, and Amiens, recording wrecked monasteries, pervasive beggary, women at the plough, poor husbandry, grasping innkeepers, and the mutilated cathedral at Amiens, capped by a chilling anecdote of Le Bon’s fall. From Chantilly he mourns the obliteration of the Condé estates (stables surviving, palaces razed, gardens and menageries destroyed), and at S. Denys he finds the royal necropolis gutted. Entering Paris, he notes the absence of a stabilizing middle class, endures comic‑grim battles with fashion and a predatory hairdresser, and closes this opening stretch at the Police Ministry amid queues, soldiers’ privilege, and a brusque, militarized bureaucracy. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Book cover of "What Is Public Domain? A Simple Guide for Book Lovers"