Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the time of Henry VIII, a significant part of the buildings of Torre Abbey, particularly the church area, lay in ruins. Then, during the 17th century and subsequently, surviving parts of the abbey were incorporated into the creation of a grand private residence, the owner of which in the early part of the 20th century was Colonel Lucius Cary. With the permission of the colonel, Hugh Watkin, who at that time was living in the Chelston district of Torquay, fairly close to the abbey, undertook certain excavations of the remaining ruins between the years of 1906 and 1911...

"Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is a book published during 1882 by Minnesota populist politician Ignatius L. Donnelly, who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during 1831. Donnelly considered Plato's account of Atlantis as largely factual and attempted to establish that all known ancient civilizations were descended from this supposed lost land. Many of its theories are the source of many modern-day concepts we have about Atlantis, like the civilization and technology beyond its time, the origins of all present races and civilizations, a civil war between good and evil, etc."

As people live in a house, Or work, day after day, in a store or factory or public building, they become used to inconveniences, bad arrangement, and lack of proper facilities. They complain for a time, perhaps, and then forget. And after a while, when the house has become home, or the large building has gathered tradition, a sort of admiration settles upon it. What is really plain ugly or wrong or bad appears quaint and full of "atmosphere." And is imitated. Style and tradition embalm the very features that make the building a bad building...

Birdseye Views of Far Lands is an interesting, wholesome presentation of something that a keen-eyed, alert traveler with the faculty of making contrasts with all classes of people in all sorts of places, in such a sympathetic way as to win their esteem and confidence, has been able to pick up as he has roamed over the face of the earth for a quarter of a century.The book is not a geography, a history, a treatise on sociology or political economy. It is a Human Interest book which appeals to the reader who would like to go as the writer has gone and to see as the writer has seen the conformations of surface, the phenomena of nature and the human group that make up what we call a "world...

Mary Frances is a little girl whose Aunt Maria intends to teach her to knit and crochet, but she's very strict and demanding. It's a good thing the Knitting People are around to help Mary Frances out! This book includes real patterns which can be knit and crocheted for dolls and children.

Biographies of Raphael Santi, Murillo, Peter Paul Rubens, and Albrecht Durer. This is a wonderful tool for art study as there are references for further study, as well as ideas for language arts to incorporate into the study.

The Waning of the Middle Ages , subtitled A study of the forms of life, thought and art in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is Johan Huizinga's most famous work. It was published in 1919 as Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen and first translated into English in 1924. Huizinga defends the idea that the exaggerated formality and romanticism of late medieval court society was a defense mechanism against the constantly increasing violence and brutality of life. The break off between Middle Ages and Renaissance was, according to him, a period of pessimism, cultural exhaustion, and nostalgia...

Newton's observations on the optical spectrum were widely accepted but Goethe noticed the difference between the scientific explanation and the phenomena as experienced by the human eye. He did not try to explain this, but rather collected and presented data, conducting experiments on the interplay of light and dark. His work was rejected as 'unscientific' by physicists but his color wheel is still used by artists today. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

Essays on art, letters, thoughts, aphorisms - Goethe's thoughts were dealing with artworks of every branch of arts. He addressed many aspects of the artistic process and described his impressions of works of arts - and even dilettantism - in his essays. Being one of the great masters of german written arts, Goethe used his own skills to express his thoughts: while Section 25 is more of a commented list of pictures in a gallery, two other sections are dramatic readings. Furthermore there are letters, talks and thoughts to entertain - I hope, these essays may function as a worthy treasure-chest for the interested...

A TEXT-BOOK OF THE HISTORY OF PAINTINGBY JOHN C. VAN DYKE, L.H.D.PREFACE.The object of this series of text-books is to provide concise teachable histories of art for class-room use in schools and colleges. The limited time given to the study of art in the average educational institution has not only dictated the condensed style of the volumes, but has limited their scope of matter to the general features of art history. Archaeological discussions on special subjects and aesthetic theories have been avoided...

This sequel to Bangs' A House-Boat on the Styx continues the "thought-experiment" of bringing various historical and fictional figures together, detailing the adventures of the ladies of Hades after they are kidnapped by pirates and the attempts of the Associated Shades (led by Sherlock Holmes) to retrieve their house-boat. (Introduction by Emma Joyce)

Raffles Holmes is introduced in these stories as the son of the great Sherlock Holmes. He is also revealed to be the grandson of A.J. Raffles, a gentleman thief pursued by Sherlock Holmes many years earlier. This apparently contradictory family background sets the stage for his colorful and amusing adventures.

The year is 1838. The scene is the dense Honduran forest along the Copán River. Two men, John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, are about to rediscover Mayan civilization. Their guide, slashing through the rampant growth with his machete, leads them to a structure with steps up the side, shaped like a pyramid. Next they see a stone column, fourteen feet high, sculptured on the front with a portrait of a man, “solemn, stern and well fitted to excite terror,” covered on the sides with hieroglyphics, and with workmanship “equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians...

The year is 1838. The scene is the dense Honduran forest along the Copán River. Two men, John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, are about to rediscover Mayan civilization. Their guide, slashing through the rampant growth with his machete, leads them to a stone column, fourteen feet high, sculptured on the front with a portrait of a man, “solemn, stern and well fitted to excite terror,” covered on the sides with hieroglyphics, and with workmanship “equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians...

William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody is one of the legends of the American western frontier. As a teen he rode for the pony expressed and then drove for the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. He later rejoined the army as a scout and was awarded the medal of honor for his valor during the Indian Wars. His fame became worldwide, however, through his flamboyant Wild West shows which toured not only across the American West but through England and Europe. John M. Burke served as Cody’s publicist and promoter for the Wild West shows, propelling him into celebrity status...

I write for public speakers. I wish to take them into my confidence. I feel I can do them good. My object is to help them to speak with greater ease and efficiency. When the voice is developed and in a condition to answer the calls made upon it, then it will naturally seek to put its powers into operation.... Develop the powers of the voice and it will not be satisfied till it find scope for their exercise. This is a marvellous feature of the human voice, and yet, perhaps, it is more or less common to all the powers we possess...

A series of lectures on landscape painting delivered at Oxford in 1871, by artist, critic, and social commentator, John Ruskin.

"The Two Paths" is a collection of five lectures delivered in 1858 and 1859 by John Ruskin on art and architecture. This is how the author himself presents the book: "The following addresses, though spoken at different times, are intentionally connected in subject; their aim being to set one or two main principles of art in simple light before the general student, and to indicate their practical bearing on modern design. The law which it has been my effort chiefly to illustrate is the dependence of all noble design, in any kind, on the sculpture or painting of Organic Form." The most famous of these, the fifth lecture, is commonly known simply as "The Work of Iron"

The Stones of Venice is a three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture by English art historian John Ruskin, first published from 1851 to 1853. Intending to prove how the architecture in Venice exemplified the principles he discussed in his earlier work, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin examined the city in detail, describing for example over eighty churches. He discusses architecture of Venice's Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance periods, and provides a general history of the city as well...

Piracy embodies the romance of the sea at its highest expression. It is a sad but inevitable commentary on our civilization, that, so far as the sea is concerned, it has developed from its infancy down to a century or so ago, under one phase or another of piracy. If men were savages on land they were doubly so at sea, and all the years of maritime adventure–years that added to the map of the world till there was little left to discover–could not wholly eradicate the piratical germ.

This handbook explains the art of bookbinding and simultaneously reminds us what a complex technology is to make books! Zaehnsdorf, bookbinder and son of a bookbinder, made this second edition of his book to enlighten amateurs and tradesmen alike. The whole process of binding a book and the required equipment are carefully explained to the reader.

A historical manuscript penned by a medieval Norse poet. A mysterious code. Three intrepid explorers. A subterranean world filled with prehistoric creatures and proto-humans. These are some of the brilliant ideas that are superbly blended in A Journey to the Interior of the Earth by Jules Verne. Jules Verne, the French writer who created several works of science fiction, adventure stories and very popular novels, wrote A Journey to the Interior of the Earth in 1864. Some of his other books explore different aspects of geography, space and time travel...

The famous writer of great adventure stories Jules Verne wrote also several lesser known, but good non-fiction works. "Celebrated travels and travellers" tells the story of geographical discovery in the same well written and precise manner we are used to finding in Verne’s fiction books. This book is divided into 3 volumes. This is the first volume, named the "Exploration of the World" and it covers the period in the World's history of exploration from B.C. 505 to the close of the 17th century. The second and third volumes are respectively entitled "The great navigators of the 18th century" and "The great navigators of the 19th century".Coordinated by Kristine Bekere and Kajo.

In preparing this book the author has sought to awaken a keener perception and a higher appreciation of the artistic and ethical value of story-telling; to simplify some of its problems; to emphasize the true delight which the story-teller may share with her hearers; and to present fresh material which answers to the test of being good in substance as well as in literary form. - Summary by From the preface