Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
Top Authors |
---|
Book type:
Sort by:
|
By: Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) | |
---|---|
Ingersoll on The HOLY BIBLE, from the Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 3, Lecture 9
Ingersoll is known as "the greatest infidel" of the 19th century. Steeped in religion as a child by his Baptist preacher father, he eventually came to rail against the hypocricy, judgment, hatred and fear he observed in his fellow Christians, and their attempt to restrict free thought and human liberty. He begins this lecture: SOMEBODY ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries... | |
Ingersoll on ERNEST RENAN from the Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 11, Lecture 12
Col. Ingersoll begins his lectures on famous people as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One of the most famous... | |
Ingersoll on THE GREAT INFIDELS, from the Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 3, Lectures
Col. Ingersoll begins his lectures on famous people as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One of the most famous... | |
Ingersoll on HUMBOLDT, from the Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 1, Lecture 2
Col. Ingersoll begins his lectures on famous people as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One of the most famous... | |
Ingersoll on WALT WHITMAN, from the Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 3, Lecture 5
Col. Ingersoll begins his lectures on famous people as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One of the most famous... | |
Ingersoll on VOLTAIRE, from the Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 3, Lecture 4
Col. Ingersoll begins his lectures on famous people as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One of the most famous... | |
Ingersoll on THOMAS PAINE, from the Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 1, Lecture 3
Col. Ingersoll begins his lectures on famous people as follows: [i]"It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance."[/i] One of the... | |
Ingersoll on ABRAHAM LINCOLN, from the Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 3, Lecture 3
Col. Ingersoll begins his popular lecture series on famous persons as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One... |
By: Robert Herrick (1591-1674) | |
---|---|
Delight in Disorder
Robert Herrick (baptised 24 August 1591 – buried 15 October 1674[1]) was a 17th-century English lyric poet and cleric. He is best known for his book of poems, Hesperides. Herrick never married, and none of his love-poems seem to connect directly with any one beloved woman. He loved the richness of sensuality and the variety of life, and this is shown vividly in such poems as Cherry-ripe, Delight in Disorder and Upon Julia’s Clothes. | |
Hag
A poem for Halloween by the 17th century English author Robert Herrick. His poems were not widely popular at the time they were published. His style was strongly influenced by Ben Jonson, by the classical Roman writers, and by the poems of the late Elizabethan era. This must have seemed quite old-fashioned to an audience whose tastes were tuned to the complexities of the metaphysical poets such as John Donne and Andrew Marvell. His works were rediscovered in the early nineteenth century, and have been regularly printed ever since. | |
Ceremonies For Christmas
volunteers bring you 11 recordings of Ceremonies For Christmas by Robert Herrick. This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 06, 2020. ------ Robert Herrick was a 17th-century English lyric poet and cleric. He is best known for Hesperides, a book of poems. This includes the carpe diem poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", with the first line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may". Our Weekly poem is taken from Hesperides Volume 2. - Summary by Wikipedia | |
Idyllica
This is a volume of poetry by Robert Herrick. The volume "Idyllica" was arranged by Francis Turner Palgrave. The 17th century English poet is continuing to inspire readers of his poetry. - Summary by Carolin | |
Comfort To A Youth That Has Lost His Love
His verse is eminent for sweet and gracious fluency; this is a real note of the 'Elizabethan' poets. His subjects are frequently pastoral, with a classical tinge, more or less slight, infused; his language, though not free from exaggeration, is generally free from intellectual conceits and distortion, and is eminent throughout for a youthful NAIVETE. | |
Chrysomela
This is a volume of poetry by Robert Herrick. The volume "Chrysomela" was arranged by Francis Turner Palgrave. The 17th century English poet is continuing to inspire readers of his poetry. - Summary by Carolin |
By: Roy J. Snell (1878-1959) | |
---|---|
Curlie Carson Listens In
It is early in the days of radio, and amateurs are using it more and more, and using it illegally. Enter Curlie Carson, who has the job of tracking down the miscreants. Sounds boring. You wouldn't expect high speed car chases, kidnapping, double dealing, and maybe even murder. | |
On the Yukon Trail
Curlie Carson and Joe Marion are chasing a radio outlaw across the frozen Alaska territory. It should be a simple dogsled trip, especially with hints from the mysterious “whisperer.” But wolves, blizzards, reindeer rustlers, and more say otherwise. Can the boys safely cross treacherous sea ice, capture the outlaw, and rescue a stranded arctic expedition? Maybe. Maybe not. Listen and find out. - Summary by Tom Penn | |
Secret Mark
Student Lucile Tucker works part-time at the library of the large university she attends in Chicago to help pay her tuition. One night, while closing the library for the evening, she glimpses a small child – a girl – in the stacks. Carefully following her, Lucile can’t believe her eyes when the child, unaware that she has been seen, manages to steal a valuable book from the collection and practically disappear from the library right before Lucile’s eyes. This is only the beginning of her search for why this child took this book (and others)... | |
Gypsy Flight
Rosemary Sample, an airplane stewardess, meets a mysterious dark lady on a flight to Salt Lake City. The plane is forced down overnight by a snowstorm. The passengers spend the night in a Hunting Lodge. In the morning, the dark lady finds her bag missing. It contains important papers that may mean the life or death of thousands of people in the small town of Happy Vale. - Summary by Dawn Larsen | |
Purple Flame
Two years after the conclusion of "The Blue Envelope", Marian is crossing the frozen Alaskan tundra alone with three reindeer in order to greet her unknown cousin in Nome. Patsy has traveled from Kentucky. Kentucky! How will she adapt to a frigid winter in Alaska? Will the girls get along? Will the two girls manage the reindeer herd in Marian's father's absence? Who is following them? And just what is that purple flame in the old abandoned scow? |
By: Saadi (1210 - c.1291) | |
---|---|
Poetry of Sa'di - A Selection
Shaikh Sa’di, also known as Saadi Shirazi, the nightingale of Shiraz, as Jami poetically calls this gifted poet, was born at Shiraz, the capital of Persia, near the end of the twelfth century. By turns, a student, a water-carrier, a traveller, a soldier fighting against the Christians in the Crusades, a prisoner employed to dig trenches before Tripoli. and an honored poet in his protracted old age at home, — his varied and severe experience took away all provincial tone, and gave him a facility of speaking to all conditions... |
By: Saint Ambrose | |
---|---|
On Virginity (De Virginitate)
One favorite topic of his was the excellence of virginity, and so successful was he in persuading maidens to adopt the religious profession that many a mother refused to permit her daughters to listen to his words. The saint was forced to refute the charge that he was depopulating the empire, by quaintly appealing to the young men as to whether any of them experienced any difficulty in finding wives. He contends, and the experience of ages sustains his contention that the population increases in direct proportion to the esteem in which virginity is held. . St. Ambrose. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.) | |
Concerning Virgins (version 2)
The value of this work is not limited to virgins. For although the author, Saint Ambrose of Milan, wrote this for his sister, the nun, Saint Marcellina, my hope is that this recording will prove edifying to all who desire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in chastity. | |
On the Death of Satyrus and On the Belief in the Resurrection
Two related addresses occasioned by the unexpected death of Ambrose's brother Satyrus: On the Death of a Brother and On the Belief in the Resurrection. - Summary by InTheDesert |
By: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) | |
---|---|
Concerning Grace and Free Will
The subject of the treatise was suggested, as is plain from the text itself, as the result of a public, or at any rate semi-public, discussion with some person unknown in which St. Bernard, strongly commending the work of grace, had seemed to lay himself open to the charge of unduly minimizing the function of free will. There is about the treatise the fragrance of mystical theology; not the mystical theology of the esoteric, but that of the simple Christian living in the world. It is wonderful how this ascetic, this cloistered recluse, touches his subject with the hand of one who knows the pulsations of average humanity. | |
On Loving God
"You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much.I answer, the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love. . . ." Saint Bernard's On Loving God is one of his most delightful, and most widely read, works. It stands in the tradition of the Fathers of the Church, but it carries patristic teaching into the Middle Ages and into the cloister. Its famous affirmation that God is to be loved without limit, sine modo, is taken directly from the letters of Saint Augustine... |
By: Saki (1870-1916) | |
---|---|
Unbearable Bassington
The Unbearable Bassington was the first novel written by Saki (H. H. Munro). It also contains much of the elegant wit found in his short stories. Comus (The Unbearable) Bassington, is a charming young man about town. His perversity however thwarts all his mother’s efforts to advance his prospects and lands him in hot water. Like many a “black sheep” he ends up being sent off to one of the colonies to fend for himself. This book showcases Saki’s wonderful writing and that ability to be so very funny and terribly sad at the same time. | |
Westminster Alice
Published five years before John Kendrick Bangs had the same idea with Alice in Blunderland, Saki, in his 1902 series of satirical articles, takes an Alice in Wonderland view of British politics, which Alice finds even stranger than events in Wonderland.In all honesty, owing to its extremely topical nature this political satire hasn't worn well, which explains why it has virtually sunk without trace. To appreciate it at all, it's really rather necessary to understand the topical references. I am... |
By: Sam Cowan | |
---|---|
Sergeant York and His People
From a cabin back in the mountains of Tennessee, forty-eight miles from the railroad, a young man went to the World War. He was untutored in the ways of the world. Caught by the enemy in the cove of a hill in the Forest of Argonne, he did not run; but sank into the bushes and single-handed fought a battalion of German machine gunners until he made them come down that hill to him with their hands in air. There were one hundred and thirty-two of them left, and he marched them, prisoners, into the American line... |
By: Samuel H. M. Byers (1838-1933) | |
---|---|
With Fire and Sword (Byers)
Samuel H. M. Byers was an American poet, diplomat, and soldier in the Civil War. "In war some persons seek adventures; others have them in spite of themselves. It happened that the writer of this book belonged to a regiment that seemed to be always in the midst of great experiences. It was, in fact, one of the few regiments that absolutely fought themselves out of existence. It was mustered in a thousand strong; it lost seven hundred and seventy-seven men by death, wounds, and disease. The fragment that was left over was transferred to a cavalry command... |
By: Samuel R. Delaney (1942-) | |
---|---|
Captives of the Flame
Chip Delany's 2nd novel -- the first is The Jewels of Aptor (1962) -- published by Ace Books in 1963. Set in the 35th Century, the survivors of a nuclear war live on the coastline and an island in a kingdom ruled by a royal family in disrepair. A young victim -- the son of a wealthy merchant -- of their wrath becomes a working-class hero as he fights to get back his good name, aided by a disaffected member of the royal family. This was later rewritten as Out of The Dead City by Delany as part of the Towers Trilogy, an early masterpiece, imo. (Introduction by BellonaTimes) | |
Jewels of Aptor
Delany's first novel, from 1962, serves as a sort of prologue to the subsequent Captives of the Flame, 1963. Set several centuries after the Great Fire -- a nuclear holocaust -- a young woman seeks her destiny with the help of a four-armed youth. |
By: Sapper (1888-1937) | |
---|---|
Men, Women and Guns
World War I stories, as told through the eyes of someone who was there, but leavened with humour and an eye for the ridiculous side of human nature. This is a collection of McNeile's early short stories, drawing on his experiences with the Royal Engineers Corps. These are the memoirs which describe the experiences that made him who he was, and gave him his famous name "Sapper". The first half is made up of separate stories, the second half is selected accounts from the life of "Jim Denver" in Ypres and France. |
By: Sappho (c. 630 BC - c. 570 BC) | |
---|---|
Sappho: A New Rendering
Sappho lived in the Greek-speaking Aeolian islands off the coast of Turkey. She is one of the very few female poets from antiquity. Although her work was very popular in ancient Greece and Rome, only small fragments survive today. This book includes translations of these fragments, as well as a poem from Ovid's Heroides, "Sappho to Phaon," a fictional letter from Sappho to her assumed lover. |
By: Sarah Cory Rippey | |
---|---|
Goody-Naughty Book (Version 2)
This fun little book was printed with two stories, back to back. Reading from the front cover, it is "The Goody Side," where children are well-behaved and polite. Reading from the back cover forward is "The Naughty Side," where children behave quite differently. |
By: Sarath Kumar Ghosh (1883-?) | |
---|---|
Wonders of the Jungle
How do elephants drink? What is the Law of the Jungle at the water hole? How does an elephant baby learn to feed and learn to swim? How do they walk under water? In what order do buffaloes drink? How do buffaloes fight the tiger? These and other wild inhabitants of the Indian jungle such as pigs, wild dogs, deer, camels, bears and birds are discussed in lively stories to entertain but mainly educate children of school age. "One of the great thinkers of the world has said that all the sciences are embodied in natural history... |
By: Shantideva (8th Cent.-8th Cent.) | |
---|---|
Path of Light - The Bodhi-Charyavatara of Santi-Deva
Shantideva is particularly renowned as the author of the Bodhicaryavatara (sometimes also called the Bodhisattvacaryavatara). An English translation of the Sanskrit version of the Bodhicaryavatara is available online, as well as in print in a variety of translations, sometimes glossed as "A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way Of Life" or "Entering the Path of Enlightenment." It is a long poem describing the process of enlightenment from the first thought to full buddhahood and is still studied by Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists today... |
By: Sophie Jewett (1861-1909) | |
---|---|
If Spirits Walk
volunteers bring you 16 recordings of If Spirits Walk by Sophie Jewett. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 22, 2020. ------ Sophie Jewett also known under the pseudonym Ellen Burroughs, was an American lyric poet, translator, and professor at Wellesley College. Her first book under her own name was The Pilgrim, and Other Poems . Jewett wrote in various poetic forms, including the rondeau, the sonnet, and the ballad. Fellow poet Richard Watson Gilder called her a true poet with a golden gift. - Summary by Wikipedia |
By: Sophocles (497 BC - 406 BC) | |
---|---|
Electra (Storr Translation)
Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes (409 BC) and the Oedipus at Colonus (401 BC) lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career. Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan war, it recounts the tale of Electra and the vengeance that she and her brother Orestes take on their mother Clytemnestra and step father Aegisthus for the murder of their father, Agamemnon. | |
Antigone (Plumptre Translation)
A powerful artistic protest against tyranny, "Antigone" has been translated and adapted dozens of times, applied over and over through the centuries to current forms of the oppression so common to human experience. Antigone's heroic resistance to Creon's petty, capricious, and unbending law has a never-ending relevance even in the third millennium CE. The play was written at a time of national fervor. In 441 BC, shortly after the play was released, Sophocles was appointed as one of the ten generals to lead a military expedition against Samos... | |
Oedipus at Colonus (Jebb Translation)
"Oedipus at Colonus" (also Oedipus Coloneus, Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους ἐπὶ Κολωνῷ, Oidipous epi Kolōnō) is one of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles' death in 406 BC and produced by his grandson (also called Sophocles) at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BC. In the timeline of the plays, the events of "Oedipus at Colonus" occur after "Oedipus the King" and before "Antigone"; however, it was the last of Sophocles' three Theban plays to be written... | |
Ajax (Campbell Translation)
Ajax is a Greek tragedy written in the 5th century BC. The date of Ajax's first performance is unknown and may never be found, but most scholars regard it as an early work, c. 450 - 430 BC. It chronicles the fate of the warrior Ajax after the events of the Iliad, but before the end of the Trojan War. At the onset of the play, Ajax is enraged because Achilles' armor was awarded to Odysseus, rather than to him. He vows to kill the Greek leaders who disgraced him. Before he can enact his extraordinary revenge, though, he is tricked by the goddess Athena into believing that the sheep and cattle that were taken by the Achaeans as spoil are the Greek leaders... | |
Philoctetes (Campbell Translation)
Philoctetes is a play by Sophocles (Aeschylus and Euripides also each wrote a Philoctetes but theirs have not survived). The play was written during the Peloponnesian War. It is one of the seven tragedies of Sophocles to have survived the ravages of time in its complete form. It was first performed at the Festival of Dionysus in 409 BC, where it won first prize. The story takes place during the Trojan War (after the majority of the events of the Iliad, and before the Trojan Horse). It describes the attempt by Neoptolemus and Odysseus to bring the disabled Philoctetes, the master archer, with them to Troy. | |
Trachiniai (Campbell Translation)
Women of Trachis (Ancient Greek: Τραχίνιαι, Trachiniai; also translated as The Trachiniae or The Trachinian Maidens) is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles. The story begins with Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, relating the story of her early life and her plight adjusting to married life. She is now distraught over her husband's neglect of her family. Often involved in some adventure, he rarely visits them. She sends their son Hyllus to find him, as she is concerned over prophecies about Heracles and the land he is currently in... | |
Oedipus Rex (Murray Translation)
"Oedipus Rex" (Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, Oidipous Tyrannos), also known as "Oedipus the King" or "Oedipus the Tyrant," is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed about 429 BC (noted classicist Gilbert Murray, translator of this version of the play, rendered the title as "Oedipus, King of Thebes"). It was the second in order of Sophocles's composition of his three plays dealing with Oedipus. Thematically, however, it was the first in the trilogy's historical chronology, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone... |
By: Stanley G. Weinbaum (1902-1935) | |
---|---|
Dark Other
The Dark Other is a horror novel by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The novel concerns Patricia Lane who is in love with Nicholas Devine, a quiet and gentle writer. Devine undergoes sudden changes becoming cold and calculating. Frightened by this, Lane consults psychologist Dr. Carl Horker who rescues her from Devine. Devine again attacks Horker, and overcomes him. He is then shot by Lane and rushed to a hospital where a surprise is found. | |
Martian Odyssey & A Valley of Dreams
The first of these stories was originally published in the July 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. It was followed four months later by a sequel, "Valley of Dreams" in the same magazine. These classic stories take us to Mars where we meet a Martian, or at least something very different from us, and several other completely original specimens of life. The Martian "Tweel" looks like an ostrich and the Egyptian god Osiris - for good reason, as you will find out if you listen to the story! These are both classic, funny, strange, entertaining, and, in my opinion, great stories by an imaginative master - summary by philc |
By: Stendhal (1783-1842) | |
---|---|
Red and the Black, Volume II
Stendhal - a German pen-name for a French writer who hated the English. Contemporary to some of the great names of French literature like Balzac and Flaubert, Stendhal is quite often considered a writer that doesn't seem to fit a defined genre. Some say he's a Romantic, others that he's a Modernist and that Le Rouge et Le Noir is the first modern novel. On one point they are all agreed: the novel is a masterpiece that shows a young theology student - Julien Sorel - intelligent, handsome and who is determined to rise above his humble peasant origins... | |
Chartreuse of Parma (The Charterhouse of Parma)
This book is more often called The Charterhouse of Parma in English, because "Charterhouse" is the English word for a Carthusian monastery, whereas "Chartreuse" is the French word. The book tells the life of a Lombard nobleman, born soon after the appearance of Napoleon's army in Italy. He has many adventures in love, war, politics, and the Church. The politics and the Church part of his life result from his doting aunt's becoming the Prime Minister's mistress, and the power behind the throne, in the Duchy of Parma... |
By: Sun Tzu 孙武 (554 BCE-496 BCE) | |
---|---|
Art of War (Version 4)
The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is commonly considered to be the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. It has been the most famous and influential of China's Seven Military Classics, and "for the last two thousand years it remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name." It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond. | |
Art of War (version 3)
First compiled in the 6th century BC, The Art of War presents a philosophy of war for managing conflicts and winning battles. It is accepted as a masterpiece on strategy and is frequently cited and referred to by generals and theorists since it was first published, translated, and distributed internationally. The book is not only popular among military theorists, but has also become increasingly popular among political leaders and those in business management. Despite its title, The Art of War addresses strategy in a broad fashion, touching upon public administration and planning... |
By: Terry Carr (1937-1987) | |
---|---|
Warlord of KOR (version 2)
GOD, MACHINE--OR LISTENING POST FOR OUTSIDERS? Horng sat opposite the tiny, fragile creature who held a microphone, its wires attached to an interpreting machine. He blinked his huge eyes slowly, his stiff mouth fumblingly forming words of a language his race had not used for thirty thousand years. "Kor was ... is ... God ... Knowledge." He had tried to convey this to the small creatures who had invaded his world, but they did not heed. Their ill-equipped brains were trying futilely to comprehend the ancient race memory of his people... |
By: Thomas Campion (1567-1620) | |
---|---|
Thrice Toss Those Oaken Ashes in the Air
LibriVox volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Thrice Toss Those Oaken Ashes in the Air by Thomas Campion. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 10, 2013.Thomas Campion was an English composer, poet, and physician. He wrote over a hundred lute songs; masques for dancing, and an authoritative technical treatise on music. |
By: Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) | |
---|---|
French Revolution Volume 1 the Bastille
The French Revolution: A History was written by the Scottish essayist, philosopher, and historian Thomas Carlyle. The three-volume work, first published in 1837 (with a revised edition in print by 1857), charts the course of the French Revolution from 1789 to the height of the Reign of Terror (1793–94) and culminates in 1795. A massive undertaking which draws together a wide variety of sources, Carlyle's history—despite the unusual style in which it is written—is considered to be an authoritative account of the early course of the Revolution. Volume 1 is titled 'The Bastille' | |
French Revolution: A History. Volume 3: The Guillotine
Of this third, and final, phase of the French Revolution, including that period known as The Terror, Carlyle comments "It is unfortunate, though very natural, that the history of this Period has so generally been written in hysterics." Carlyle's own account of the prominent personalities and "two great movements" that dominate this phase of the revolution — "a rushing against domestic Traitors, a rushing against foreign Despots" — spares us none of the drama, yet is surprisingly compassionate and understanding from an author whose own society was riven with social inequalities that might conceivably have led to insurrection... | |
French Revolution: A History. Volume 2: The Constitution (Version 2)
The second volume of this famous and idiosyncratic history covers events from October 1789, after Louis XVI has been 'persuaded' to leave Versailles and take up residence in Paris, through to August 1792. By the end of this time, Louis and his family have tried, unsuccessfully, to flee the country, France has been invaded by foreign powers, and anti-royalist French militia have brutally massacred a corps of Swiss Guards seeking to defend Louis and his family in their Paris residence. Louis is imprisoned, and it is clear to all that a three year effort to establish a constitutional monarchy have failed. - Summary by Peter Dann | |
French Revolution: A History. Volume 1: The Bastille (Version 2)
Subtitled "The Bastille", Volume 1 of Thomas Carlyle's three volume "The French Revolution: A History" was first published in 1837, and covers the events of the French Revolution up to the forced move of Louis XVI from Versailles to Paris. While a modern listener not already familiar with the events described here may need some time to get their bearings amidst a sea of unfamiliar names and allusions, Carlyle's idiosyncratic yet justly famous present-tense, quasi-firsthand narrative quickly builds into a gripping, highly dramatic story which contemporary scholars still regard as being essentially accurate... |
By: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) | |
---|---|
Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society
De Cive ("On the citizen") is one of Thomas Hobbes's major works. "The book was published originally in Latin from Paris in 1642, followed by two further Latin editions in 1647 from Amsterdam. The English translation of the work made its first appearance four years later (London 1651) under the title 'Philosophicall rudiments concerning government and society'." It anticipates themes of the better-known Leviathan. The famous phrase bellum omnium contra omnes ("war of all against all") appeared first in De Cive. DPLs for this project were phaedo and craigdav1 |
By: Thomas Nelson Page (1853-1922) | |
---|---|
Burial of the Guns
This is a book of short stories centered around the Civil War and its aftermath. The author was a prominent Virginian in his day, and his writing shows a talent for poignant reminiscences. The title comes from the second story, in which an artillery unit detached from Lee's army determines to follow their last orders - not to let their cannons fall into Union hands - despite Lee's surrender and the end of the War in Virginia. The other stories focus on individuals in the post-War years. |
By: Thomas Reid (1710-1796) | |
---|---|
Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense
"That excellent book by Thomas Reid, the Inquiry into the Human Mind (first edition, 1764; 6th edition, 1810), as a negative proof of the Kantian truths, affords us a very thorough conviction of the inadequacy of the senses to produce the objective perception of things, and also of the non-empirical origin of the perception of space and time. Reid refutes Locke's doctrine that perception is a product of the senses, by a thorough and acute demonstration that the collective sensations of the senses... |
By: Thomas Watson (1620-1686) | |
---|---|
Art of Divine Contentment
"The Art of Divine Contentment" is an exposition by the Puritan minister Thomas Watson of the text found in Philippians 4:11: "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." It examines the nature of contentment and how to live it out in the Christian life, both by answering questions regarding problems with contentment and by giving examples of practical contentment. It is a good read for people with religious or historical interests. |