Son of John Westgarth, surveyor-general of customs for Scotland, was born at Edinburgh, in June 1815. He was educated at the high schools at Leith and Edinburgh, and at Dr Bruce’s school at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He then entered the office of G. Young and Company of Leith, who were engaged in the Australian trade, and realizing the possibilities of the new land, decided to emigrate to Australia. He arrived in Melbourne, then a town of three or four thousand inhabitants, in December 1840.When the new colony was constituted Westgarth headed the poll for Melbourne at the election for the legislative council...

A collection of memoirs about the Peninsular War, the Battle of Waterloo, and society and personalities of Regency London and 19th century Paris, by a sometime Grenadier Guards officer, unsuccessful parliamentarian, and dandy. Gronow displays social attitudes of the day which would now be regarded as unacceptable, but is a clever raconteur who brings to life both the horrors of war and the gaiety of high society.

“Among other qualities which have been supposed to belong to a dead man’s hand, are its medicinal virtues, in connection with which may be mentioned the famous ‘dead hand,’ which was, in years past, kept at Bryn Hall, Lancashire… Thus the case is related of a woman who, attacked with the smallpox, had this dead hand in bed with her every night for six weeks, and of a poor lad living near Manchester who was touched with it for the cure of scrofulous sores.” Though not all chapters have such gruesome subjects as The Dead Hand, all are full of a curious mixture of superstition and local history that will delight and amuse the modern listener.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 – 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha — resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience. This philosophy was firmly founded upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence, and led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi and in India also as Bapu. He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday.

Dr. Walsh’s Old-Time Makers of Medicine chronicles the history and development of modern medicine from ancient times up to the discovery of America. Throughout this historical guide, Dr. Walsh shows numerous examples of practices thought to be entirely modern that were clearly anticipated hundreds or thousands of years ago. Ancient healers sought to use the body’s natural healing ability, rather than rely exclusively on external cures. Physicians even in ancient times relied on what is now recognized as the placebo effect...

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe moved to California from Massachusetts during the Gold Rush of the mid-1800’s. During her travels, Louise was offered the opportunity to write for The Herald about her travel adventures. It was at this point that Louise chose the name “Shirley” as her pen name. Dame Shirley wrote a series of 23 letters to her sister Mary Jane (also known as Molly) in Massachusetts in 1851 and 1852. The “Shirley Letters”, as the collected whole later became known, gave true accounts of life in two gold mining camps on the Feather River in the 1850s...

When I first started reading this book, I thought it to be a historical romance novel. As I read further, I pondered whether it might be a sea-faring story. Reading still further, I determined it to be an adventure story. Alas, it is all three. To Have And To Hold, written by Mary Johnston was the bestselling novel of 1900. The story takes place in colonial Jamestown during the 1600’s. Captain Ralph Percy, an English soldier turned Virginian explorer buys a wife - little knowing that she is the escaping ward of King James I...

“This book contains the record of a few of the many happy days and novel experiences which I have had in the wilds. For more than twenty years it has been my good fortune to live most of the time with nature, on the mountains of the West. I have made scores of long exploring rambles over the mountains in every season of the year, a nature-lover charmed with the birds and the trees. On my later excursions I have gone alone and without firearms. During three succeeding winters, in which I was a Government Experiment Officer and called the “State Snow Observer,” I scaled many of the higher peaks of the Rockies and made many studies on the upper slopes of these mountains.”

The journal of William Bradford, who served five terms as governor of the Plymouth colony, is an indispensable document of the events of early American history. His eyewitness account includes the stories of the Pilgrims’ sojourn in the Netherlands, the voyage of the Mayflower, the hardships of the New World, relations with the Indians, and the colony’s growth from an endangered enterprise to a thriving city. This edition of Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation presents the text in language made more accessible to the modern reader

George Hamilton was the surgeon assigned to the frigate Pandora. The British Admiralty ordered the ship to the Pacific to arrest the Bounty mutineers and bring them back to England for trial. The commander, Captain Edward Edwards, also was ordered to chart the passage between Australia and New Guinea. While Edwards managed to arrest the mutineers still on Tahiti, he sank the Pandora on a reef near Australia. Hamilton tells this story and also the story of the crew’s fate after the Pandora sank.

Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months’ imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany into Holland.

Ab urbe condita, is a monumental history of ancient Rome written in the Latin language by Titus Livius(Livy), an ancient Roman historian. The work covers the time from the stories of Aeneas, the earliest legendary period from before the city's founding in c. 753 BC, to Livy's own times in the reign of the emperor, Augustus. The last year covered by Livy is 745 AUC, or 9 BC, the death of Drusus. About 25% of the work survives.Livy's History of Rome was in demand from the publication of the first packet...

It is the 1570's, and the people of the Netherlands live in terror under the cruel dominion of Spain. Though many long to be free of Spanish tyranny, efforts at rebellion are failing, and allies are nowhere to be found. Edward “Ned” Martin, son of an English captain and a Dutch lady, is thrust into the conflict when he resolves to help his mother’s people and avenge his murdered relatives. Entering the service of the revolutionary leader William the Silent, Prince of Orange, Ned is called upon to carry out dangerous secret missions deep within occupied territory...

"Famous Affinities of History" is a book of passion-filled accounts of the most famous love affairs of history. The stories of Cleopatra, Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Jonathan Swift, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, George Sand and other famous people of all times (even those of royal blood are not spared), are dealt with in Lyndon Orr's own interesting and suspenseful style. Written in four volumes, this book makes for an informative, interesting and thoroughly enjoyable read, giving us an insight into the lives and lifestyles of various popular figures of history.

Athelstan King is a British Secret Agent stationed in India at the beginning of WWI. He is attached to the Khyber Rifles regiment as a cover, but his real job is to prevent a holy war. "To stop a holy war single-handed would be rather like stopping the wind--possibly easy enough, if one knew the way." King is ordered to work with a mysterious and powerful Eastern woman, Yasmini. Can King afford to trust her? Can he afford not to? (Introduction by Brett W. Downey)

In the book's preface, the author writes: "Let anyone stop to consider how he individually would be affected if all electrical service were suddenly to cease, and he cannot fail to appreciate the claims of electricity to attentive study."In these days when we take for granted all kinds of technology - communications, entertainment, medical, military, industrial and domestic - it is interesting to learn what progress had been made in the fields of electricity and technology by the beginning of the 20th century...

A poor family is surprised with an infant on their doorstep on New Year’s Eve with a note and monetary support requesting them to raise the child. Eight years later, the child is stolen and the family is put into more trouble trying to find her. This is a story of how love and good morals are reward with a fairy tale “happily ever after” ending.

While claiming to be historical papers on the causes of the United States Civil War, the author indulges in some Slavery Apologetics. An interesting view from a southern lady on what caused the war and why the south was the underdog.

Ellen Gould White (1827 – 1915) was a prolific Christian writer, authoring 40 books in her lifetime. She was active in the Millerite movement, and was one of the principle founders of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.Steps to Christ, first published in 1892, is her most popular book. It has been translated into more than 70 languages. The theme of the book is how to come to know Christ better.

"In preparing these volumes for the public, I have entered upon the task with the sincere desire to avoid doing injustice to any one, whether on the National or Confederate side, other than the unavoidable injustice of not making mention often where special mention is due. There must be many errors of omission in this work, because the subject is too large to be treated of in two volumes in such way as to do justice to all the officers and men engaged. There were thousands of instances, during the rebellion, of individual, company, regimental and brigade deeds of heroism which deserve special mention and are not here alluded to...

May Agnes Fleming is renowned as Canada's first best-selling novelist. She wrote 42 novels, many of which have only been published posthumely.The Midnight Queen is set in London, in the year of the plague 1665. Sir Norman Kingsley visits the soothsayer "La Masque" who shows him the vision of a beautiful young lady. Falling madly in love with her, he is astonished to find her only a short time later and saves her from being buried alive. He takes her home to care for her, but while he fetches a doctor, she disappears. Sir Kingsley and his friend Ormistan embark on an adventure to solve the mystery of the young lady - will they ever find her again?

The first volume of Lea’s monumental work on the Inquisition of Spain, covering its origin and establishment and its relations with the state. Also included are appendices listing Tribunals, Inquisitors-General, and Spanish coinage.

"Jesus of Nazareth, a Biography, by John Mark," recognizes the author of the second Gospel as that "John, whose surname was Mark" (Acts 15:37), whom Barnabas chose as companion when he sailed for Cyprus on his second missionary journey. In making use of the new title, the plan of the Editor is to present "The Gospel: According to Mark" as it would be printed were it written in the twentieth rather than the first century. (Introduction from Forward, by D. Appleton & Co, Publishers, 1922)

“Perceiving that much of the intrinsic value of these Journals would consist in a proper understanding of the historical facts to which allusions are made in them, I prevailed upon Mr. Lossing, the well-known author of the “Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution” to illustrate and elucidate these diaries by explanatory notes. His name is a sufficient guaranty for their accuracy and general usefulness”