A Tale of the Great Plague. 1666 was a difficult year in London. With its sordid materialism and its coarse handling of things most sacred, not merely does Manning see, as an Englishwoman, the grandeur of its struggles, but she sees its best embodiment in the tragedy of an almost perfect life. In her description of the plague , followed by The Great Fire, Manning is taken out of her comfort zone to the sordid realities. Her answer is to take Mistress Cherry to a country house in Berkshire, where peace and tranquility are to be found. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

The Dream Coach was named a Newbery Honor Book in 1925. Anne Parrish's original stories of dream adventures hold fairy-tale charm that is sure to delight young children, perfect for bedtime reading one chapter at a time. Her tales capture the surreal silliness and strangeness of the dream state and the way our minds slip into that realm without our awareness. There are a couple of phrases early on that betray the cultural insensitivity that used to be acceptable in children's literature in the U.S.

"This Essay May be Considered as the Germ of the Treatise on The Wealth of Nations, Written by the Celebrated Smith" —Condorcet's Life of Turgot.

The pieces gathered into this volume were, with two exceptions, written for the entertainment of a private circle, without any view to publication. The editor would express her thanks to the writers, who, at her solicitation, have allowed them to be printed. They are published with the hope of aiding a work of charity,—the establishment of an Agency for the benefit of the poor in Cambridge,—to which the proceeds of the sale will be devoted.

In her autobiography, Annie Besant poignantly writes of her search for the truth of what she believed in, leaving Christianity behind to embrace Atheism, and ultimately finding her peace in Theosophy, which she became interested in after meeting Helena Blavatsky. She moved to India to better study Theosophical ideas and this is where she made her home until her death. She was a gifted orator and writer, often speaking and writing on her religious beliefs, as well as women's rights and social reform...

My Path to Atheism is a remarkable document in many ways, not least that it was written by a woman in Victorian England, not the most open free-thinking of societies, especially for women at that time. It needed a remarkable woman to write such a revolutionary and to 19th century minds, heretical document in a society where the Church had such a stronghold. Besant herself was originally married to a clergyman, but her increasingly anti-religious views and writings led to a legal separation. She went...

Four lectures about East Indian spirituality delivered at the twenty-fifth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Benares, 1900. - Summary by Czandra

"Man's Rights; or, How Would You Like It?: Comprising Dreams" is the first known feminist utopian novel written by a woman. The text features nine dreams experienced by a first-person female narrator. In the first seven dreams, she visits the planet Mars, finding a society where traditional sex roles and stereotypes are reversed. The narrator witnesses the oppression of the men on Mars and their struggle for equality. In the last two dreams, the narrator visits a future United States ruled by a woman president.

Timid Joanna Traill’s every move is dictated by her overbearing sisters. Then she meets Mr. Boas, a man who works to give “fallen” women a chance at a better life. Through Mr. Boas, Joanna has the opportunity to take in as a ward a girl from a troubled background. When she takes Christine under her wing, her lonely, monotonous life starts to change for the better, and she learns to assert herself and live on her own terms, not her sisters’. As the years pass, Christine gets to know Mr...

The scene of this story is laid in Kentucky. Its heroine is a small girl, who is known as the Little Colonel, on account of her fancied resemblance to an old-school Southern gentleman, whose fine estate and old family are famous in the region. (Introduction taken from original book.)

This is the story of Joyce, an American girl who has been sent abroad to France to study, and of her adventures in France, - the wonderful house with the gate of The Giant Scissors, Jules, her little playmate, Sister Denis, the cruel Brossard, and her dear Aunt Kate.

In This volume the Little Colonel returns to us like an old friend, but with added grace and charm. She is not, however, the central figure of the story, that place being taken by the “two little knights,” Malcolm and Keith, little Southern aristocrats, whose chivalrous natures lead them through a series of interesting adventures.

Lloyd Sherman, the "Little Colonel", is a girl of eleven whose mother invites three other girls to spend a month with Lloyd in her beautiful home in Kentucky. The children come from very different homes, but fall into the new ways very readily. The account of their escapades will amuse young readers. A bit of disobedience on the part of one spoiled girl leads to something of a tragedy, in which Betty, the nicest of the children, is the sufferer.This series for girls from the early 1900’s, begun...

"What happened after the Little Colonel's house party?" they demand, and they send letters to the Valley by the score, asking "Did Betty go blind?" "Did the two little Knights of Kentucky ever meet Joyce again or find the Gate of the Giant Scissors?" Did the Little Colonel ever have any more good times at Locust, or did Eugenia ever forget that she too had started out to build a Road of the Loving Heart?It would be impossible to answer all these questions through the post-office, so that is why the magic kettle has been dragged from its hiding-place after all these years, and set a-boiling once more...

In this sixth volume of “The Little Colonel Series” for girls, Lloyd is surprised with a gift for her twelfth birthday, of a summer trip to Europe. In Geneva she becomes friends with an old Prussian major and his Red Cross dog, a St. Bernard named Hero. Through many adventures, in the end the Little Colonel learns the true meaning of selfless duty.

Because of the illness of her grandfahter, Lloyd Sherman, the Little Colonel, finds herself being sent off to boarding school from her home in Lloydsboro Valley, Kentucky. Jolly times are mixed with lessons in this 7th book in the "Little Colonel" series for girls.