Leander Stillwell was an 18-year-old Illinois farm boy, living with his family in a log cabin, when the U.S. Civil War broke out. Stillwell felt a duty “to help save the Nation;” but, as with many other young men, his Patriotism was tinged with bravura: “the idea of staying at home and turning over senseless clods on the farm with the cannon thundering so close at hand . . . was simply intolerable.” Stillwell volunteered for the 61st Illinois Infantry in January 1861. His youthful enthusiasm for the soldier’s life was soon tempered at Shiloh, where he first “saw a gun fired in anger,” and “saw a man die a violent death...

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace chronicles the lives of five Russian aristocratic families during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Many considered this book to be the best Russian work of literature of all time and it is massive in scale. The book is divided in four volumes and the chapters don't just contain the narrative of the plot to the novel but philosophical discussions as well. This may be intimidating to average book readers but they shouldn't be discouraged to try reading War and Peace. After all, this book was written for all and not just for intellectuals...

The Cossacks (1863) is an unfinished novel which describes the Cossack life and people through a story of Dmitri Olenin, a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. This text was acclaimed by Ivan Bunin as one of the finest in the language.

More systematic, but no less sincere than A Confession , The Critique of Dogmatic Theology is an early attempt on the part of Tolstoy to impart the results of his meticulous study and fearless inquiry into the beliefs and traditions of Orthodox Christianity following his renewed interest in spirituality. - Summary by Paul Rizik

This account by Trotsky is of the events in Russia from the October Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, to his signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty with Germany on 3rd March 1918 which took Russia out of the First World War. The treaty exacted heavy losses for Russia in terms of annexations of land and financial indemnities to Germany. In this extended essay, Trotsky argues the reasons as to why he decided to sign what appears to be a disastrous agreement for Russia.

Woolf wrote this novel based on his experience as a government agent for British imperialist-controlled Ceylon in the early part of the twentieth-century. He focuses his story on one poor family in a jungle village as they struggle to survive, not just faced with a very harsh environment but with their own human prejudices, superstitions, jealousies, violence, ignorance, and greed. In the background is the other enemy: the foreign government that controls them but does not really understand or care for these uncivilized, not really human beings. It was an important work because its point of view was sympathetically a native one. JL

Published in 1917, this "little volume of 'Theta’s' letters to his home people" was assembled to provide useful information for young men who might like to become pilots for the Royal Flying Corps. A mixture of conversational letters, poems, and descriptions of flying, the book proves entertaining, even today, despite having been written in training and in active duty during World War I. - Summary by Lynette Caulkins

Buddhism and Buddhists in China is an anthropological text describing Buddhism as practiced in China at the beginning of the 20th Century. Interestingly, it also compares and contrasts Buddhism with Christianity with respect to or in response to missionary work.

While most associate the "Great War" with trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, and poison gas, ships played roles in the military at the beginning of the 20th century. Stories of the Ships is a 1919 collection of accounts described in the first person by those who fought battles on the sea during World War I. It gives the listener a more complete account of the conflicts that defined the most costly war in history. Lewis Ransome Freeman was an American explorer, journalist and war correspondent who wrote over twenty books chronicling his many travels, as well as numerous articles...

The Liezi (Chinese: 列子; pinyin: Lièzĭ; Wade-Giles: Lieh Tzu; literally “[Book of] Master Lie”) is a Daoist text attributed to Lie Yukou, a circa 5th century BCE Hundred Schools of Thought philosopher, but Chinese and Western scholars believe it was compiled around the 4th century CE. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, the Liezi was designated a Daoist classic, completing the trilogy with the more famous Daodejing and Zhuangzi. The Liezi is generally considered to be the most practical of the major Daoist works, compared to the philosophical writings of Laozi and the poetic narrative of Zhuangzi...

Frederick II , under whose reign the Holy Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent, was called by his contemporaries "Stupor Mundi," the "astonishment of the world." Frequently at war with the papacy, which was hemmed in between Frederick's northern and southern Italian lands, he was excommunicated four times. Frederick spoke six languages and was an avid patron of the arts. He negotiated a peace treaty ending the sixth crusade, reigned over a cosmopolitan court at Palermo, and entrusted the administration of his southern kingdom to an efficient Muslim and Jewish bureaucracy...

Logan Marshall's book "The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters" gives readers a first-hand account of the greatest sea disaster of all time straight from the survivors of the ill-fated sunken ship. Unlike many of the books about the Titanic that was written recently, Logan Marshall was fortunate that he was able to interview the survivors of the Titanic and access to all the important documents about the ship, including the diagrams, maps and actual photographs related to the disaster...

This two volume work is the autobiography of Lord Cochrane, a naval captain of the Napoleonic period. His adventures are seminal to the development of naval fiction as a genre. Marryat sailed with Cochrane, while later writers borrowed incidents from this biography for their fictions. Most notable among these is Patrick O'Brian, three of whose novels have clear parallels to incidents in the life of Cochrane. This first volume covers Cochrane's earlier life, during which he is most active militarily. (Introduction by Timothy Ferguson)

This second volume of the biography of Lord Cochrane deals with his fall from grace, imprisonment for debt, loss of honours, and attempts to clear his name. It has had a marked influence on naval fiction, most obviously on some of the novels by Patrick O'Brian. - Summary by Timothy Ferguson

Maria Chapdelaine is one of the most famous French Canadian novels. It is the love story of Maria Chapdelaine, daughter of a peasant family in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region of Quebec, in the 1900s. It is often seen as an allegory of the French Canadian people, describing simple joys and great tragedies, the bonds of family, the importance of faith, and the strength of body and spirit needed to endure the harshness of life in Canada’s northern wilderness.

Louis Hughes was born a slave near Charlottesville, Virginia to a white father and a black slave woman. Throughout his life he worked mostly as a house servant, but was privy to the intimate details and workings of the entire McGee cotton plantation and empire.In Thirty Years A Slave Hughes provides vivid descriptions and explicit accounts of how the McGee plantation in Mississippi, and the McGee mansion in Tennessee functioned--accounts of the lives of the many slaves that lived, suffered and sometimes died under the cruel and unusual punishments meted out by Boss and his monstrously unstable and vindictive wife...

Mr. Desjardins was driven to write this work to refute statements uttered by the nationalist Henri Bourassa, which the former feared painted all Quebecers with the same unpatriotic brush in respect to their contribution to the Great War.

Alcott in 1862 served as a nurse in Georgetown, D.C during the Civil War. She wrote home what she observed there. Those harrowing and sometimes humorous letters compiled make up Hospital Sketches.

"When two young girls decide to have a tea party with their dolls and a mysterious dog comes and eats their prized cake, they end up finding a circus run-away, Ben Brown. Ben is a horse master, and loves horses, so when the Moss' take the young boy in, they decide to give him work at the neighbors house driving cows (on a horse, of course). After that a series of events happens, and Ben finds out his beloved father is dead. Miss Celia, a neighbor, feels sorry and comforts him, and finally offers to let Ben stay with her and her fourteen-year-old brother, Thornton who is called Thorny...

Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans Volume 1, translated by Bernadotte Perrin.

FURNISHING THE HOME OF GOOD TASTEA BRIEF SKETCH OF THE PERIOD STYLES IN INTERIOR DECORATION WITH SUGGESTIONS AS TO THEIR EMPLOYMENT IN THE HOMES OF TODAY BY LUCY ABBOT THROOP Preface To try to write a history of furniture in a fairly short space is almost as hard as the square peg and round hole problem. No matter how one tries, it will not fit. One has to leave out so much of importance, so much of historic and artistic interest, so much of the life of the people that helps to make the subject vivid, and has to take so much for granted, that the task seems almost impossible...

Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth from a variety of sources within the monarch's court, compiled and interpreted by Lucy Aikin.

In From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom Delaney tells the story of how she was born into slavery of her mother--a freeborn black woman who had been kidnapped and sold on the blocks--but escaped while a teenager and eventually sued in court for her freedom. After the Civil War, Delaney spent the rest of her life inspiring other African Americans to take advantage of the new opportunities available to them as a result of their new found freedom, and to constantly strive to improve their lives and the lives of their progeny

A Short History of Russia by Lucy Cazalet is a helpful introduction to the people, places, and events that shaped Russia, the largest country in the world. While covering the bullet points of Russian history, the author expands to greater detail when talking about the people whose ideas and victories became the backbone of Russian culture and politics. The timeline of this book is the 9th century A.D. to 1906, when the country's first State Parliament opened, but before the last Romanov Tsar, Nicholas II, was executed, and Revolution swept the entire country.

Old Rail Fence Corners is an historical treasure trove containing the stories of the first significant waves of European-American settlers in the now state of Minnesota (United States of America). This book has direct accounts of mid-19th century lives and experiences on the frontier, recounted by the frontiersmen and women when many of them were in their mid-90s. A group of volunteer women -- the Book Committee -- sought to record these recollections before they were lost with the passing of these remarkable adventurers...

If you've read and loved Anne of Green Gables, you'd definitely like to add Rainbow Valley by Lucy Maud Montgomery to your collection. Published in 1919, it is the seventh book in the series and follows the further life and adventures of Anne Shirley. At Ingleside, Anne is now happily married to her childhood friend the devoted Gilbert Blythe and have now been together blissfully for fifteen years. They have six children. The book opens with the return of Anne and Gilbert (who is now a brilliant doctor) from a sojourn in London, where they had gone to attend a big medical congress...

Lydia Maria Child, an American abolitionist, compiled this collection of short stories and poems by former slaves and noted activists as an inspiration to freed slaves. In her dedication to the freedmen, she urges those who can read to read these stories aloud to others to share the strength, courage and accomplishments of colored men and women. In that spirit, this recording aims to gives that voice a permanent record. As in the original text, the names of the colored authors are marked with an "x".

"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.

FOR more than six hundred years that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws...

Lytton Strachey’s first great success, and his most famous achievement, was “Eminent Victorians” (1918), a collection of four short biographies of Victorian heroes. With a dry wit, he exposed the human failings of his subjects and what he saw as the hypocrisy at the centre of Victorian morality. This work was followed in the same style by “Queen Victoria” (1921).

The Awakening of Europe by M. B. Synge is the third book in the series, Story of the World. Included in this history is a myriad of interesting men, women, and events that shaped Europe during the years 1520-1745.

This is the second volume in the series, The Story of the World, which covers the period of history from the rise of Rome to the Conquest of Peru. Along the way, passing through the Dark Ages, going on the Crusades, and exploring the unknown world with the brave men who had the courage to travel unknown seas. Also featured is the destruction of Pompeii and the invention of the Printing Press, along with many other interesting happenings of history during this time period.

Telling the history of geographical discoveries, "Book of Discovery" is a record of splendid endurance, of hardships bravely borne, of silent toil, of courage and resolution unequalled in the annals of mankind, of self-sacrifice unrivalled and faithful lives laid ungrudgingly down. Of the many who went forth, the few only attained. It is of these few that this book tells. (From the Preface of the book).

Book I of the "Story of the World" series. Focuses on the civilizations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea from the time of Abraham to the birth of Christ. Brief histories of the Ancient Israelites, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Scythians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans are given, concluding with the conquest of the entire Mediterranean by Rome. Important myths and legends that preceded recorded history are also related. Ages 9-18

A light journey through the history of chemistry, from its start in the obscure mysteries of alchemy to what was, for the author, the cutting edge of the development of modern atomic theory … and whose developing blind ends we can now see with the advantage of hind sight.

This short history by the eminent British historian, Mandell Creighton, places Elizabeth and her reign within the context of 16th century European political, religious, and military events. Elizabeth overcomes her two great rivals, King Philip of Spain and Mary, Queen of Scots. England gradually unites behind her Queen, who survives multiple assassination plots. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the English, lightly taxed by their frugal sovereign, launch flourishing commerce enterprises. The author writes of the Protestant Reformation that "a change of belief meant a revolt from authority...

"The Princess Elizabeth of England was born at Greenwich, between three and four of the afternoon of September 7, 1533. Her birth was a matter of small rejoicing to her parents, who were sorely disappointed that their first-born was not a boy." So begins this short, but stirring biography by the British historian, Mandell Creighton, of the magnificent last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. We see Elizabeth in constant peril during the turbulent and ineffectual reigns of Edward VI and Mary. At her accession, her country is little better than an appendage of the Spanish state...

A children’s book detailing early American history from the Norsemen to the Revolution, meant for educational use. (Description by the reader)

I have merely tried to make a written record of some of the hours I have lived through during the course of this war. A modest Lieutenant of Chasseurs, I cannot claim to form any opinion as to the operations which have been carried out for the last nine months on an immense front. I only speak of things I have seen with my own eyes, in the little corner of the battlefield occupied by my regiment.

A philippic is a fiery, damning speech delivered to condemn a particular political actor. The term originates with Demosthenes, who delivered an attack on Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BCE.Cicero consciously modeled his own attacks on Mark Antony, in 44 BC and 43 BC, on Demosthenes’s speeches, and if the correspondence between M. Brutus and Cicero are genuine [ad Brut. ii 3.4, ii 4.2], at least the fifth and seventh speeches were referred to as the Philippics in Cicero’s time. They were also called the Antonian Orations by Aulus Gellius...

On Architecture is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus as a guide for building projects. The work is one of the most important sources of modern knowledge of Roman building methods as well as the planning and design of structures, both large (aqueducts, buildings, baths, harbours) and small (machines, measuring devices, instruments). He is also the prime source of the famous story of Archimedes and his bath-time discovery.

In 1904, Margaret Nevinson, a respectable lady and active suffragette, joined the board of guardians in Hampstead Heath. The guardians had responsibility over the parish workhouse. In the UK, before the 1930s, one could not receive welfare assistance unless he or she entered the workhouse. A house for which one had to work. The conditions were so poor, sometimes even poorer then conditions in prison. The workhouse inspired many novels, the most famous is Oliver Twist. This collection of short stories is about the horrors Margaret saw, chiefly about things women had to endure...

Margaret Sanger was an American sex educator and nurse who became one of the leading birth control activists of her time, having at one point, even served jail time for importing birth control pills, then illegal, into the United States. Woman and the New Race is her treatise on how the control of population size would not only free women from the bondage of forced motherhood, but would elevate all of society. The original fight for birth control was closely tied to the labor movement as well as the Eugenics movement, and her book provides fascinating insight to a mostly-forgotten turbulent battle recently fought in American history.

Margaret Sanger, an advocate for birth control rights, chronicles the story of her struggles, including her times in jail and in exile, in order to legalize birth control options for women. She details the uphill battles of not only convincing lawmakers, but of doctors as well. Her relentless pursuit is told against the backdrop of courtrooms, her personal life, and her travels across the globe, giving a glimpse into the world during and post-WW I. This riveting account is a must read for those interested in a key moment in woman’s history and reform.

The Able McLaughlins won the Pulitzer Prize for a novel in 1924 in Margaret Wilson's debut work. Aptly described as "Little House on the Prairie - but for adults" the novel follows a group of Scottish families who pioneer the Iowa prairie in the 1860’s. The main storyline concerns Wully, the eldest McLaughlin son, who returns home from the Civil War to find that his sweetheart, Chirstie, has experienced an unspeakable tragedy that will profoundly affect the couple's lives. Their story is one of shame and honor, secrets and guilt, fear and loathing, revenge and forgiveness...

Each summer, in the ancient hill town of Siena, Italy, there erupts one of the most extraordinary, exciting, and dangerous horse races in the world— the Palio. So furious is the rivalry that it is often said the Palio is more battle than race, and that "Fate is the Queen of the Palio." This magnificent book is a true story of the Palio —a thrilling, heart-stirring tale of a boy and a beautiful half-Arabian mare who won undying fame. Marguerite Henry tells—as only she can—how the life of Giorgio Terni, a boy of the Maremma marshes, became linked in strange and dramatic fashion with that of the cart horse Gaudenzia, whose Arabian blood brought her into the contest of the Palio...

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE FOR GIRLSBy MARGUERITE STOCKMAN DICKSONA FOREWORDFortunate are we to have from the pen of Mrs. Dickson a book on the vocational guidance of girls. Mrs. Dickson has the all-round life experiences which give her the kind of training needed for a broad and sympathetic approach to the delicate, intricate, and complex problems of woman's life in the swiftly changing social and industrial world. Mrs. Dickson was a teacher for seven years in the grades in the city of New York. She then became the partner of a superintendent of schools in the business of making a home...

The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes was inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders. An older couple, the Buntings, are forced to take in lodgers to make ends meet. They are on the verge of starvation when a mysterious man, Mr. Sleuth, appears at their door and asks for lodging, paying in advance. However, when the murders of young women in London attributed to a man known only as “The Avenger” continue, the Buntings, particularly Mrs. Bunting, grow fearful that their lodger may be the murderer.

The semiautobiographical travel memoir records Twain’s, more or less, personal journey across the Wild West in search of adventure while exploring variable locations. Accompanying his brother on what becomes a trip of a lifetime, the young Samuel Clemens finds himself in many different vocational roles as he explores and observes the magnificence of the American West. Not refraining from the usual social commentary, Twain directs criticism on various social and moral issues which he approaches through his sly and witty style...

Get the true story of Adam and Eve, straight from the source. This humorous text is a day-to-day account of Adam’s life from happiness in the “GARDEN-OF-EDEN” to their fall from grace and the events thereafter. Learn how Eve caught the infant Cain, and Adam takes some time to learn exactly what it is.

Eve's Diary is a comic short story by Mark Twain. It was first published in the 1905 Christmas issue of the magazine Harper's Bazaar, and in book format in June 1906 by Harper and Brothers publishing house. It is written in the style of a diary kept by the first woman in the Judeao-Christian creation myth, Eve, and is claimed to be "translated from the original MS." The "plot" of this novel is the first-person account of Eve from her creation up to her burial by, her mate, Adam, including meeting and getting to know Adam, and exploring the world around her, Eden...

Mark Twain’s work on Joan of Arc is titled in full “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte.” De Conte is identified as Joan’s page and secretary. For those who’ve always wanted to “get behind” the Joan of Arc story and to better understand just what happened, Twain’s narrative makes the story personal and very accessible. The work is fictionally presented as a translation from the manuscript by Jean Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, “Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France...

"A good candidate for 'the most under-appreciated work by Mark Twain' would be 'The Treaty With China,' which he published in the New York Tribune in 1868. This piece, which is an early statement of Twain's opposition to imperialism and which conveys his vision of how the U.S. ought to behave on the global stage, has not been reprinted since its original publication until now." (the online, open-access "Journal of Transnational American Studies" published it in the spring, 2010).

This is Mark Twain's vicious and amusing review of Fenimore Cooper's literary art. It is still read widely in academic circles. Twain's essay, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses (often spelled "Offences") (1895), particularly criticized The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder. Twain wrote at the beginning of the essay: 'In one place in Deerslayer, and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.' Twain listed 19 rules 'governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction', 18 of which Cooper violates in The Deerslayer. (Introduction by Wikipedia and John Greenman)

This satire on the U.S.A.'s myth of being the "Home of the Oppressed, where all men are free and equal", is unrelenting in its pursuit of justice through exposure. It draws a scathingly shameful portrait of how Chinese immigrants were treated in 19th century San Francisco. (Introduction by John Greenman)

This audiobook is a collection of Mark Twain's anti-imperialist writings (newspaper articles, interviews, speeches, letters, essays and pamphlets).

Collection of short essays concerning French novelist and critic Paul Bourget. Included: "What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us" and "A Little Note to M. Paul Bourget".

This collection of the 258 known, publicly-printed interviews of Mark Twain was compiled by Gary Scharnhorst and published by the University of Alabama Press. The interviews are in the Public Domain, and our thanks go to Gary Scharnhorst and the University of Alabama for making them available for this Public Domain audio recording. They were compiled in the University of Alabama Press book entitled "Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews" and are arranged, chronologically, from Twain's first authenticated interview in 1871, to his last interview in 1910...

This collection of the 195 known, publicly-printed speeches of Mark Twain was compiled by Paul Fatout and published by the University of Iowa Press. The speeches are in the Public Domain, and our thanks go to the University of Iowa for making them available for this Public Domain audio recording. They were compiled in the University of Iowa Press book entitled "Mark Twain Speaking" and are arranged, chronologically, from Twain's first authenticated public speech in 1864, to his last speech, exactly 7 months before he died. Extensive analysis , notes, appendix and index are included in the printed work. - Summary by John Greenman

This collection of articles came from Mark Twain's travels and experiences abroad. While many had been previously published, there also were many that had never before seen the light of day...which one reviewer said had never been Twain's intent for them, having consigned them to obscurity. With introductory essays by Brander Matthews and Albert Bigelow Paine, the book paints a clear picture of the complexity and wide variety of Samuel L. Clemens' thinking, where it originated and how it developed.

Christian Science is a 1907 collection of essays Mark Twain wrote about Christian Science, beginning with an article that was published in Cosmopolitan in 1899. Although Twain was interested in mental healing and the ideas behind Christian Science, he was hostile towards its founder, Mary Baker Eddy . He called her, according to American writer Caroline Fraser, "[g]rasping, sordid, penurious, famishing for everything she sees—money, power, glory—vain, untruthful, jealous, despotic, arrogant, insolent, pitiless where thinkers and hypnotists are concerned, illiterate, shallow, incapable of reasoning outside of commercial lines, immeasurably selfish...

Elsie, young and motherless, has never met her father and is being raised by her father’s family. As a strong Christian, she has many trials within the unbelieving family. Her greatest comforts are her faith and her mammy, Chloe. Finally, her father returns home. Will her father love her? Will her father learn to love Jesus?

This is the second book of the much loved Elsie Dinsmore series and starts where the first book left off. Elsie is still recuperating from her weakness, with her kind and indulgent father by her side.The story revolves around how a strong bond of love and understanding takes root between the father and daughter, as they holiday at Roselands, and visit exciting places, with some of our favorite friends from the first book, Mr. Travilla, Adelaide, Chloe, Lora and the others.

This book continues the delightful "Elsie Dinsmore" series. Elsie's children, introduced in the previous volume, live life, grow up, and encounter various problems of their own. Additional Proof Listeners: AlaynaMay & Rachel.

Book 5 of the story of Mildred Keith by Martha Finley. We join Mildred as she settles into home life as wife and mother. We also see the rest of the Keith children begin to make starts of their own - some near to home, and others far away and perhaps lost forever. The Dinsmore cousins continue to be part of the story as well. - Summary by Michelle Hannah

The seventh in the Elsie Dinsmore series, this book begins with the death of Elsie's beloved husband. As Elsie learns to live in widowhood, the story shifts to the lives of those most precious to her - her children and extended family.

In this biography for young adults, Mary A. Hamilton gives a British person’s perspective on the 16th President of the United States. A glowing tribute to “Honest Abe”, the author traces Lincoln’s ancestral roots and recounts his birth in Kentucky, his youth in Indiana, his adult life in Illinois and his years in the White House. She also provides a good background on the causes and course of the American Civil War. Hamilton is not always historically precise. For example, she erroneously names Jefferson Davis as the Southern Democratic candidate for president running against Lincoln and Douglas in 1860 rather than John C...

In a small space the Oxford-educated historian, Mary Hollings, provides a panoramic view of a tumultuous age. We meet Cesare Borgia and Savonarola, the universal spider, Louis XI, Henry IV, France's best-beloved king, Sweden’s wise and courageous Queen Christina, and great generals, like Albrecht von Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus. The twin ideals of imperial unity and of one true church led to two centuries of unremitting warfare from the fertile plains of Italy, through the alpine passes, across France, the Netherlands, the German states, to Poland and Bohemia...

Being a Jew in Russia at the end of the 19th century was not easy at all. Jews were persecuted because of their religion. So the Jews found comfort in their ancient traditions. When Mary Antin’s father decided that keeping to his traditions did not suit him anymore, he found no place in Russia. So he emigrated to America with his family. Life was not easy, though as a child, Mary describes life in Boston as almost perfect. A smart and dignified girl, Mary takes the good things in anything and writes her autobiography with a smile.

An intensely personal account of the immigration experience as related by a young Jewish girl from Plotzk (a town in the government of Vitebsk, Russia). Mary Antin, with her mother, sisters, and brother, set out from Plotzk in 1894 to join their father, who had journeyed to the “Promised Land” of America three years before. Fourth class railroad cars packed to suffocation, corrupt crossing guards, luggage and persons crudely “disinfected” by German officials who feared the cholera, locked “quarantine” portside, and, finally, the steamer voyage and a famiily reunited...

Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, a well-educated South Carolina woman who was the wife of a Confederate general, kept extensive journals during the Civil War. Mrs. Chesnut moved in elite circles of Southern society and had a keen interest in politics. Her diary is both an important historic document and, due to her sharp wit and often irreverent attitude, a fascinating window into Southern society of the time. This recording is of the first published edition of the diary, compiled from Mrs. Chesnut's revisions of her original journals.

It is the Christmas season once again and things are, well, boring for the adults at Penlyon Castle. "...if somehow or other I had a pack of children belonging to me, I would keep Christmas with the best — keep it as it ought to be kept." says Sir John. His good friend Mr. Danby has the perfect solution - to hire some children to spend Christmas! Thus, the arrival of Lassie, Laddie, and little Moppet - Christmas and Sir John may never be the same again. Proof Listener - hallejk

"He was a stranger in Matcham, a 'foreigner' as the villagers called such alien visitors. He had never been in the village before, knew nothing of its inhabitants or its surroundings, its customs, ways, local prejudices, produce, trade, scandals, hates, loves, subserviencies, gods, or devils , and yet henceforward he was to be closely allied with Matcham, for a certain bachelor uncle had lately died and left him a small estate within a mile of the village."

Housing, Food, Clothing, Health, Sanitation, Recreation, Religion, Duties, Discipline. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts in history in the Graduate School of the University of Illinois 1918. - Summary by David Wales

This delightful little book is one of many titles in The Little Cousin Series. The author narrates details in the life of a fictional Russian girl named Petrovna. In doing so she introduces children to Russian life and culture at the turn of the 20th century. - Summary by Marie Christian

Mary Pengilly was taken to a Lunatic Asylum by her sons where she kept a diary, which this book is taken from. Mary records the harsh conditions and treatments received at the hands of the nurses during her stay. Once Mary is released she takes it upon herself to make the authorities aware of the situation at the Provincial Lunatic Asylum.

The Land of Little Rain is a book of sketches which portray the high desert country of southern California, where the Sierras descend into the Mojave Desert. Mary Austin finds beauty in the harsh landscape: "This is the sense of the desert hills--that there is room enough and time enough. . . The treeless spaces uncramp the soul." Her story begins with the water trails that lead toward the few life giving springs--the way marked for men by ancient Indian pictographs. Life and death play out at these springs...

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...

In this remarkably detailed and sweeping fifth installment, Mary Johnston takes us from discoveries and settlements to the evolution into the first colonies, specifically Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and finally Georgia. Group: Chronicles of America Series

The title of this historical fiction could as well have been "A Soldier’s Mother" or “An Unknown Soldier”. There are indeed butterflies, and there is a small boy who grows into a fine, strapping young man who goes to war. But this moving novella centers squarely on the young man's mother, her love for him and her abiding faith.

This is the second of two travelogues published by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958). Both deal with Glacier National Park, and this book also deals with the Cascade Mountains (The other is entitled Through Glacier Park). Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and articles, though she is most famous for her mystery stories. The region that became Glacier National Park was first inhabited by Native Americans and upon the arrival of European explorers, was dominated by the Blackfeet in the east and the Flathead in the western regions.

A personal account of the American author's visit to Europe in January 1915 while a war correspondent in Belgium for The Saturday Evening Post. She writes: "War is not two great armies meeting in a clash and frenzy of battle. It is much more than that. War is a boy carried on a stretcher, looking up at God's blue sky with bewildered eyes that are soon to close; war is a woman carrying a child that has been wounded by a shell; war is spirited horses tied in burning buildings and waiting for death; war is the flower of a race, torn, battered, hungry, bleeding, up to its knees in icy water; war is an old woman burning a candle before the Mater Dolorosa for the son she has given...

This is the story of Mary Rowlandson’s capture by American Indians in 1675. It is a blunt, frightening, and detailed work with several moments of off-color humor. Mary, the wife of a minister, was captured by Natives during King Philips War while living in a Lancaster town, most of which was decimated, and the people murdered. See through her eyes, which depict Indians as the instruments of Satan. Her accounts were a best-seller of the era, and a seminal work, being one of the first captivity narratives ever published by a woman...

I should have thought that no preface would have been required to introduce Mrs. Seacole to the British public, or to recommend a book which must, from the circumstances in which the subject of it was placed, be unique in literature. If singleness of heart, true charity, and Christian works; if trials and sufferings, dangers and perils, encountered boldly by a helpless woman on her errand of mercy in the camp and in the battle-field, can excite sympathy or move curiosity, Mary Seacole will have many friends and many readers...

In every country there have been certain men and women whose busy lives have made the world better or wiser. The names of such are heard so often that every child should know a few facts about them. It is hoped the very short stories told here may make boys and girls eager to learn more about these famous people. (from the Forward of the text)

Regarded as the one of the earliest examples of feminist philosophy, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is written as a direct response to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, a French politician who delivered a report to the French National Assembly suggesting that women should only receive domestic education and additionally encourages women to stay clear of political affairs. In her treatise, Wollstonecraft avidly criticizes this inadequate perception of women as an inferior sex and attacks social inequality, while also arguing for women’s rights in the hope of redefining their position both in society and in marriage...

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the early promoters of gender equality long before other crusaders took up the cause. She is perhaps best known for her books, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” and “A Vindication of the Rights of Men” . But she also wrote widely on education and used fiction formats to promote her progressive views. This book using the genre of didactic children’s stories, was written the same year as her “Mary: A Fiction” 1788, but was first published anonymously...

Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. The preface was added in 1875. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, "Culture [...] is a study of perfection". He further wrote that: "[Culture] seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light [...

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?

Alaska has only been a state since 1959, and the breathtaking terrain remains mostly unspoiled and natural. In modern times, many of us have had the pleasure of visiting Alaska via a luxurious cruise ship, where we enjoyed gourmet meals, amazing entertainment, and a climate-controlled environment. It's easy to also book a land package that enables you to see more of the country by train.Imagine what it was like to visit the same wild, untamed countryside in 1899. Instead of boarding a sleek, stylish cruise ship, you travel for weeks on a steamer...

The genius of May Sinclair lies in her brilliant bridging of the Victorian and the modern eras, in her determination never to become ossified in an outdated way of thought or of Art. Though a generation older than the famous literati of the postwar era, she clearly perceived what was worth saving of the old and what was worth embracing of the new. This is clear, of course, in her remarkable fiction, particularly in the astonishing “Life and Death of Harriet Frean,” “Mary Olivier,” and “Tree of Heaven,” in which she broke new ground in psychological and stream-of-consciousness fiction...

The author of this work was the daughter of the British ambassador to Russia. She was in St. Petersburg from before World War I to after the Bolshevik Revolution, leaving in January 1918. Rather than a dry retelling of the history of this period, the author gives a more personal view of the events, as she lived through them. - Summary by TriciaG

"The expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, for exploring the river Missouri, and the best communication from that to the Pacific Ocean, has had all the success which could be expected. They have traced the Missouri nearly to its source; descended the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, ascertained with accuracy the Geography, of that interesting communication across the continent; learned the character of the country, its commerce and inhabitants; and it is but justice to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, and their brave companions, have, by this arduous service, deserved well of their country...

A Hero of Our Time is indeed a portrait, but not of one man. It is a portrait built up of all our generation's vices in full bloom. You will again tell me that a human being cannot be so wicked, and I will reply that if you can believe in the existence of all the villains of tragedy and romance, why wouldn't believe that there was a Pechorin? If you could admire far more terrifying and repulsive types, why aren't you more merciful to this character, even if it is fictitious? Isn't it because there's more truth in it than you might wish?

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.

Moncure Daniel Conway was an American abolitionist, Unitarian, clergyman and author. This second volume of his autobiography covers the years from the US Civil War to roughly 1904.

The Guide for the Perplexed by Mūsá ibn Maymūn is regarded as one of the most important works of Medieval Jewish thought. The book attempted to harmonize the philosophy of Aristotle with the Rabbinical teachings, but was regarded by many at the time as antithetical to Jewish theology, despite its earnest arguments in vindication of the ways of God. - Summary by Daniel Davison

The nineteenth century was marked by intense colonization by countries like Britain, France, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. Initially, the pioneering efforts were made by men who battled unfamiliar terrain to create territories that they marked out as their own, while their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters kept the home and hearth in their native land. However, with travel becoming more common and family life assuming more importance, the women too began to travel to the four corners of the earth...

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.

Written in the aftermath of Word War I, Viscountess Snowden recounts her travels in post war Europe in, as she describes it, "an attempt to do what one person might do, or at least attempt, to restore good feeling between the nations and the normal course of life as quickly as possible." An outspoken pacifist, socialist, and feminist who nonetheless strongly denounced the Bolsheviks, Snowden was a controversial and polarizing figure. whose views and observations offer a unique perspective on Europe in the '20s. - Summary by Ciufi Galeazzi