Edward Payson Roe

Dennis Fleet is a hard-working and pious young Christian man who’s come to the big city of Chicago in order to earn money for his poor family. As he braves his first icy winter, he quickly moves up the rungs of business until he finds himself working for the prosperous art dealer Mr. Ludolph. Ludolph’s beautiful daughter Christine quickly catches Dennis’s eye—but much to his chagrin, she’s a non-believer. Roe, a Presbyterian minister from New York, was inspired to write Barriers Burned Away after news of the Great Chicago Fire spurred him to visit the remains of the city. He set the book against the backdrop of the encroaching fire, making the novel a fascinating portrait of an era of Chicago that was literally burned to cinders. The book went on to become the bestselling book of 1872, and with its high moral air and sermon-like prose played no small part in breaking down the prejudice against fiction novels that was common in Christian communities of the day.

Beautiful and popular 20 year old Marion lives in New York during the Civil War, which hasn't touched her life at all. Her father does some type of work for the government, but she has no idea what. He mother is an empty headed, pleasure loving woman who loves hosting her daughter's friends and pays no attention to anything serious, including her husband. Marion is on her way to becoming as vapid as her mother when she overhears a conversation that shocks her. Vowing to change her behavior she appeals to her father. After several long sermons, he encourages to change her life and use her personal appeal to encourage those around her to better themselves, also. This means several of her suitors end up going off to war, while another finds himself on a different path. Including first-person accounts of Gettysburg and other battles, the reader wonders who will survive the war and win Marion's now virtuous hand.

The old-fashioned story of Madge, a young, sickly girl who falls in love with her unmarried brother-in-law. Tired of being so weak, she changes her life, follows a pattern of healthy exercise and intelligent reading and conversation, and remakes herself into a beautiful paragon. Still, the man she loves has his eye on someone else, a society girl of shallow character and no intellect.

He best deserves a knightly crest, Who slays the evils that infest His soul within. If victor here, He soon will find a wider sphere. The world is cold to him who pleads; The world bows low to knightly deeds.

01. Adventure of the Dying Detective by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 02. An Unexpected Result by Edward P. Roe 03. The [Purloined Letter]( by Edgar Allan Poe 04. The Stolen Bacillus by H. G. Wells 05. The Wind in the Willows, Chapters 3 and 4, by Kenneth Grahame 06. The Remarkable Rocket by Oscar Wilde 07. The Diamond Necklace by Guy De Maupassant 08. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald 09. The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan by Beatrix Potter 10. A Retrieved Reformation by O. Henry