Author Archive: Retro

A one-armed man obtains an artificial limb which he cannot control.

A messenger boy is wrongfully accused of stealing bonds worth $20,000.

A romantic bandit named Alvarez, wanted for raids on the mining camps of the California gold rush in 1849, is reformed by the love of a good woman.

Big Ben has the largest store in the town of New Ralgia. His chief clerk is in love with the post mistress. The three of them get involved in a series of mishaps with their customers and with the town ladies’ man, whose advances conceal a more sinister purpose.

In the midst of an emotional depression, a man hires a murderer to kill him. But the despair soon passes, and the man must now escape the killer he’s hired to end his life.

The fiend faces the spectacular mind-bending consequences of his free-wheeling rarebit binge.

A young married couple are living happily in the little fishing village and at the opening of the story the young husband is one the “Three fishers went sailing away to the West, away in the West as the sun went down. Each thought on the woman who loved him best, and the women stood watching them out of the town. For men must work and women must weep, and there’s little to earn and many to keep. Though the harbor bar be moaning.” As the days rolled by the “three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower…They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,” but no sign of their husband’s return could be seen. Ah! Little did they know that on a distant shore “Three fishers lay out on the shining sands, in the morning gleam as the tide went down.” When the rescue party brings the fishers in they find [...]

In the little Italian city of Cremona there dwelt Taddeo Ferrari, a violin maker and student of Andrea Amati, the most famous of the craft. Ferrari’s pretty daughter, Giannina, was beloved by one of his apprentices, Sandro. Filippo, a crippled youth and the best violin maker in Cremona, also loved the girl with a pure, holy affection that is more spiritual than material, but realizing his unattractiveness through his deformity, suffers his hopelessness with resignation. Yearly there is a prize of a precious chain of gold awarded to the maker of the best violin, and all the apprentices strive to win it. On this occasion, however, the hand of Giannina is to be bestowed upon the most proficient craftsman, and this induces the young men to make extra efforts to win. Sandro fully appreciates the rare talent of Filippo and feels sure his wonderful skill will win his sweetheart from him. Crushed and despairing he [...]