Books with title The Moon of the Salamanders

The day was Thursday; the month, October, rushing to its close; and the battered alarm-clock on the red mantel stood at precisely one o'clock. The room was enormous, high and generally dim, the third floor front of Miss Pim's boarding-house on lower Madison Avenue. Of its four windows, two, those at the side, had been blinded by the uprising of an ugly brick wall, which seemed to impend over the room, crowding into it, depriving it of air. The two windows fronting on the avenue let in two shafts of oblique sunlight. The musty violet paper on the walls, blistered in spots, was capped by a frieze of atrocious pink and blue roses. The window-shades, which had been pulled down to shut out the view of the wall, failed to reach the bottom. The curtain-rods were distorted, the globes on the gas fixtures bitten and smoked. At the back, an alcove held a small bed, concealed under a covering of painted eastern material. An elongated gilt mirror, twelve feet in height, leaned against the corner. Trunks were scattered about, two open and newly ransacked. A folding-bed transformed into a couch, heaped with cushions, was between the blind windows: opposite, a ponderous rococo dressing-table, the mirror stuffed with visiting-cards, photographs and mementoes. Half a dozen vases of flowers—brilliant chrysanthemums, heavily scented violets, American Beauty roses, slender and nodding—fought bravely against the pervading dinginess. On the large central table stood a basket of champagne, newly arrived, a case of assorted perfumes, a box of white evening gloves and two five-pound boxes of candy in fancy baskets.

When 13-year-old Elijah Pendleton investigates a strange black cat that mysteriously appeared in his backyard, he finds himself at the doorstep of a woman who will split the understructure of his miserable existence by divulging his true identity as an Enchanter. When she also reveals his parents, whom he believed had abandoned him at birth, may, in fact, be laboring under the callous imprisonment of a power-driven dark ruler bent on revenge and total domination, Elijah feels compelled to do whatever it takes to find them; even if it means stepping through a hidden portal into another world to find them himself. If the long-awaited prophecy is correct, then Elijah’s arrival will bring forth the end to the land’s decade-long reign of darkness. But if the prophecy is to be fulfilled, Elijah will first have to survive the long and treacherous journey that awaits.

Precarious the lot of the author who elects to show his public what it does not know, but doubly exposed he who in the indiscreet exploration of customs and manners publishes what the public knows but is unwilling to confess I In the first place incredulity tempers censure, in the second resentment is fanned by the necessity of self-recognition. For the public is like the defendant in matrimony, amused and tolerant when unconvinced of the justice of a complaint, but fiercely aroused when defending its errors. In the present novel I am quite aware that where criticism is most risked is at the hands of those entrenched moralists who, while admitting certain truths as fit subjects for conversation, aggressively resent the same when such truths are published. Many such will believe thati in the following depiction of a curious and new type of modern young women, product of changing social forces, profoundly significant of present unrest and prophetic of stranger developments to come, the author, in depicting simply what does exists holding a brief for what should exist. If the type of young girls here described were an ephemeral manifestation or even a detached fragment of our society, there might be a theoretical justification for this policy of censure by silence. But the Salamanders are neither irrelevant nor the product of unrelated forces.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

O to live in the heart of such a fire, like a salamander!Alfredo, a choir boy in 18th-century Italy, loses his family in a fire, and his mysterious Uncle Giorgio spirits him away to their ancestral home below a volcano. There he learns that Uncle Giorgio is the Master of the Mountain; he can control the volcano. He is also an alchemist, able to make gold from the tears of the fiery salamander he captured from the heart of the mountain. Alfredo is his heir, the next Master; and as Alfredo learns the history of his family and its power, he begins to suspect that his uncle is actually a fearsome sorcerer.From the Hardcover edition.

O to live in the heart of such a fire, like a salamander!Alfredo, a choir boy in 18th-century Italy, loses his family in a fire, and his mysterious Uncle Giorgio spirits him away to their ancestral home below a volcano. There he learns that Uncle Giorgio is the Master of the Mountain; he can control the volcano. He is also an alchemist, able to make gold from the tears of the fiery salamander he captured from the heart of the mountain. Alfredo is his heir, the next Master; and as Alfredo learns the history of his family and its power, he begins to suspect that his uncle is actually a fearsome sorcerer.