The Boys’ Life of Abraham Lincoln is a biography with many anecdotes that takes one deeper into the thoughts, personality, and beliefs of the man that was Lincoln. While the title indicates the book is about Lincoln’s life as a boy, the book is a full, if somewhat shortened biography. It is very well written and was a joy to record. One might ask, "Who was Helen Nicolay?" Her father, John George Nicolay, was Abraham Lincoln's private secretary and doubtless much of the material comes from his complete biography of Abraham Lincoln. (

Sketches of those who braved the 'Great White North' in exploration and adventure. - Summary by KevinS

History made interesting for young readers—This Country of Ours by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall provides a simple and easy to comprehend way of looking at the history of the United States. Arranged chronologically in seven long chapters, it presents events in a story form, making them memorable and very different from other formats. One of the challenges that writers of history face is about fleshing out the characters and making the bland repetition of dates and dynasties seem relevant to modern day readers...

“These tales are memories of several months spent as a special correspondent attached to the forces of the American Navy on foreign service…. [I have] been content to chronicle the interesting incidents of the daily life as well as the achievements and heroisms of the friends who keep the highways of the sea…. I would not end without a word of thanks to the enlisted men for their unfailing good will and ever courteous behaviour.” Henry Beston was an American author. In 1918, Beston became a press representative for the U...

Henry Walton Bibb was born a slave. His father was white although his identity was not positively known. Bibb was separated from his mother at a very young age and hired out to other slave owners for most of his childhood. Always yearning for his freedom, he made his first escape from slavery in 1842. He was recaptured and escaped, recaptured and escaped over and over; but he never gave up on his desire to be a man in control of his own destiny.

Between the former site of old Fort Dearborn and the present site of our newest Board of Trade there lies a restricted yet tumultuous territory through which, during the course of the last fifty years, the rushing streams of commerce have worn many a deep and rugged chasm. These great canons—conduits, in fact, for the leaping volume of an ever-increasing prosperity—cross each other with a sort of systematic rectangularity, and in deference to the practical directness of local requirements they are in general called simply—streets...

Its purpose … is to tell in simple fashion the story of some Americans who showed that they knew how to live and how to die; who proved their truth by their endeavor; and who joined to the stern and manly qualities which are essential to the well-being of a masterful race the virtues of gentleness, of patriotism, and of lofty adherence to an ideal. It is a good thing for all Americans … to remember the men who have given their lives in war and peace to the service of their fellow-countrymen, and to keep in mind the feats of daring and personal prowess done in time past by some of the many champions of the nation in the various crises of her history.

A young man travels to South Africa to find his Mother and sister. He wants to be a clergyman and a farmer when he arrives there. This story includes accounts of the Zulu-Boer wars. - Summary by Ingrid Kennedy

Two years, two months and two days! This is what forms the time line of one man's quest for the simple life and a unique social experiment in complete self reliance and independence. Henry David Thoreau published Walden in 1884. Originally drafted as a series of essays describing a most significant episode in his life, it was finally released in book form with each essay taking on the form of a separate chapter. Thoreau's parents were in financial straights, but rich intellectually and culturally...