
On his fourteenth birthday, Keith Burton receives a mysterious “Treasure Island” from his father, only to discover that the printed pages are hopelessly blurred. The oddity doesn’t stop there; the same indecipherable type soon appears in the family’s weekly journal, a local magazine, and even the Sunday newspaper, leaving the curious boy uneasy and eager for answers. As he quietly examines the strange print, Keith senses that something more unsettling lies beneath the surface.
In the same small town, the gossip‑filled fence conversation between Susan Betts and Mrs. McGuire reveals that Uncle Joe Harrington, once the go‑to fixer for every kid’s mishap, has gone suddenly blind. The women attribute his loss of sight to a gradual “blurring” that mirrors the inexplicable printing errors plaguing Keith’s world. With a growing sense that these coincidences are linked, the young protagonist is drawn into a puzzling mystery that the locals are already dubbing the “Great Terror.
Language
en
Duration
~7 hours (430K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Release date
2004-06-01
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1868–1920
Best known for creating the endlessly hopeful Pollyanna, this American novelist wrote warm, popular stories that reached huge audiences in the early 20th century. Before turning to fiction, she trained as a singer, and that sense of feeling and rhythm carried into her writing.
View all books