In this short book, the British Naval historian, Julian Stafford Corbett, chronicles the adventurous career of Sir Francis Drake , the farmer's son who became Queen Elizabeth's most feared privateer and her most daring and resourceful naval officer. In his quest for the gold and silver of Spanish Peru, he rounded Cape Horn, losing men and ships in that "enchanted void, where wind and water, ice and darkness, seemed to make incessant war." After capturing the treasure ship from the astonished Spaniards, he circumnavigated the globe...

William Ewart Gladstone , four times Prime Minister of Great Britain, dominated the Liberal Party for thirty years, but ultimately divided it over the issue of Irish Home Rule, which he unsuccessfully championed. He brought to parliamentary politics a moral fervor which made him the personification of the Victorian Age, but which also challenged the complacency of its imperialistic assumptions. In this 1897 biography, the Liberal Irish member of Parliament, Justin McCarthy, presents a Gladstone still...

The fourth and concluding volume of this history of Victorian Britain opens with the brutal repression in 1865 of a rebellion by ex-slaves in Jamaica. Then in 1867, the Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, takes his celebrated "leap in the dark" with the passage of the most comprehensive expansion of manhood suffrage in British history. The Fenian movement agitates unsuccessfully for Irish independence. British trade unions win the right to organize. William Ewart Gladstone launches his great reform ministry by abolishing in Ireland the hated Anglican establishment and follows with a flood of bills reforming education, the British army, and poor relief...

Philip Melanchthon is best known as the theologian of the Protestant Reformation, systematizing and defending much of Martin Luther’s works and creating an educational system based on them. He was instrumental in the writing of the Augsburg Confession, the most influential document of the Reformation. Melanchthon and Luther, of different temperaments, did not always agree but respected each other and became a formidable spearhead for the Reformation. Karl Ledderhose here provides a comprehensive biography of Melanchthon including his principle ideas and activities, so it also serves as a history of many important aspects of the Reformation. - Summary by Larry Wilson

"In the year 1907, the Woman’s Home Companion commissioned me to go to Russia to write the story of the early days, courtship and marriage of her whom the world knows to-day as the 'Tsaritsa,' The following year, the same periodical sent me to Italy to write a similar account of the life of Queen Elena; and in 1910 I was once more sent abroad, this time to Spain, to learn all about Queen Victoria Eugenie....'Your task is difficult,'remarked a friend to whom I had just explained that I was writing the lives of the Empress of Russia, the Queen of Spain, and the Queen of Italy...

This work the author claims is indeed a true story of how he happened to be married seven times to seven different women and the rollicking, hilarious events that led (or stumbled) to the marriages and the ah–disassembling/failing/failures of each said marriage which happened oftentimes to land him in prison. The summarist finds the work a very tongue-in-cheek diatribe/lament/account of his obsessive zeal in ‘marrying the right one’, but is also the mirthful chronicle of said author’s very unconventional adventures.

This is a young person's biography of Abigail Adams that will appeal to readers of all ages. In the author's own words, "I am not writing a history; far from it. I am merely throwing on the screen, in the fashion of today, a few scenes to make a background for my little pen-picture-play. " - Summary by Ciufi Galeazzi

Imagine a young, twenty-something woman in 1860, reared “in the indolent life of the ordinary Southern girl” (which means she has never learned to cook); married to a professional man who knows “nothing of manual labor;” who is mother to a young son; and who has just found out she is pregnant with their second child. Imagine that this couple has become “embarrassed financially” by “imprudent speculations,” and that they are discussing what to do. They decide to buy a wagon and three yoke of unbroke oxen and head overland to California...

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...

Childhood, published in 1852, is the first novel in Leo Tolstoy’s autobiographical trilogy, which also includes Boyhood, and Youth. Published when Tolstoy was twenty-three, the book gained immediate notice among Russian writers including Ivan Turgenev, and heralded the young Tolstoy as a major figure in Russian letters. Childhood is an expressionist exploration of the internal life of a young boy, Nikolenka, and was a new form in Russian writing, mixing fact, fiction and emotions to render the moods and reactions of the narrator. Childhood is Tolstoy’s first published work. Translated into English by C. J. Hogarth.

Boyhood is the second in Tolstoy's trilogy of three autobiographical novels, including Childhood and Youth, published in a literary journal during the 1850s. (Introduction by Bill Boerst)

Youth is the third in Tolstoy's trilogy of three autobiographical novels, including Childhood and Boyhood, published in a literary journal during the 1850s. (Introduction by Bill Boerst)

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...

This is a short life of Henry John Temple , Third Viscount Palmerston, Great Britain's affable, able, and always available Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, and Prime Minister. Sanders writes that by 1841 Palmerston "had raised the prestige of England throughout Europe to a height which it had not occupied since Waterloo. He created Belgium, saved Portugal and Spain from absolutism, rescued Turkey from Russia, and the highway to India from France."

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)

Included in this little book are analyses and backgrounds of most of Tschaikowsky’s standard concert music. A short sketch of Tschaikowsky’s life precedes the section devoted to the orchestral music. Yet, the personal outlook and moods of Russia’s great composer are so inextricably bound up with his music, that actually the whole booklet is an account of his strangely tormented life. In the story of Tschaikowsky, life and art weave into one closely knit fabric. It is hoped that this simple narrative will aid music lovers to glimpse the great pathos and struggle behind the music of this sad and lonely man. - Summary by Author's Foreword

Born in 1133, King Henry II of England reigned from 1154 until his death in 1189. Before he was forty, he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the eastern half of Ireland and, thanks to his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the western half of France. He famously fought with his former friend, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with Eleanor, and with his rebellious children. But Henry was one of England's greatest kings. He replaced feudal anarchy with strong central government, laid the foundations of British common law and the jury system, and greatly increased the efficiency of the Exchequer.

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...

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.

Edward the Black Prince was the eldest son of King Edward III of England. He commanded the vanguard at the Battle of Crécy and, skillfully deploying his troops, defeated a much larger French force at the Battle of Poitiers. In this short biography, Louise Creighton sets Edward's life within the context of his times and portrays both the bright and the dark sides of this paragon of chivalry.

Sir Walter Ralegh , English soldier, explorer, courtier, writer, and poet was one of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era. Louise Creighton's short biography follows him from the wars in Spain to the jungles of Guiana. Ralegh sparkles in a court riddled with intrigue and constrained by attendance on the brilliant, imperious Elizabeth and on her successor, that rigid mediocrity, James. During his long confinement in the Tower of London, Ralegh conducted chemical experiments and wrote a ''History of the World...

Louise Creighton was a British author and women's rights activist. The wife of the Anglican bishop of London, she was the mother of seven children. In this short book, Creighton gives us chapters on such well-known women as Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, and Queen Victoria. But we also learn about St. Hilda, the 7th century royal princess who became an influential abbess, the prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry, and Isabella Bird, who thrilled Victorian readers with accounts of her lone travels on horseback to remote and perilous places. - Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough , was the oldest surviving son of Sir Winston Churchill, an impoverished country gentleman. After the restoration of Charles II, John's sister, Arabella, became the mistress of the King's brother, James, Duke of York. The family fortunes were made and Churchill's military career launched. In the winter of 1677-78, Churchill married Sarah Jennings, the intimate friend of the future Queen Anne. Ruthlessly changing sides during the Glorious Revolution, he deserted his patron James and joined the army of William of Orange...

Saint Edmund Campion, S.J., was an English Catholic Jesuit priest and martyr. While conducting an underground ministry to the persecuted Catholics of Elizabethan England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Seneca the Younger’s letters to his friend, Lucilius Junior, appear to have been written with a broad audience in mind. These letters introduce major themes of Stoic philosophy and have been a source of inspiration and comfort for readers throughout the centuries. - Summary by jvanstan

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

Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving lives contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman, as well as four unpaired, single lives. Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, as such, but in exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. The first pair of lives the Epaminondas-Scipio Africanus no longer exists, and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers...

Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving lives contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman, as well as four unpaired, single lives. Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, as such, but in exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. The first pair of lives the Epaminondas-Scipio Africanus no longer exists, and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers...

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

Lucy Larcom was an American poet, teacher, and mil-worker. According to Wikipedia: "Larcom served as a model for the change in women's roles in society." This is her colorful autobiography. Here, she tells about her happy childhood, and her time working in the mill. Along the way, she speaks about topics like morality, independence, love and loss inside a family, a strong belief in god, and the effects of being poor. Fans of Gene Stratton Porter, Fanny Fern and Susan Warner, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox will be delighted with this book. Lucy's sunny personality makes this book a very uplifting and interesting read.

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...

I have to thank all the previous students of Shelley as poet and man--not last nor least among whom is my husband--for their loving and truthful research on all the subjects surrounding the life of Mrs.Shelley. -Lucy Madox Brown Rossetti Mrs. Shelley is a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, author of Frankenstein and other works, wife of Percy Shelley, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin who penned The Vindication of the Rights of Women, and daughter of William Godwin, a philosopher and novelist...

L.M. Montgomery's autobiography highlighting her childhood and early literary career. Published in 1917 after she had written several novels. - Summary by Carolyn Agee

"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.

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).

This brief sketch of the holy life and marvelous achievements of a great inheritor of the spirit of Saint Francis of Sales, Saint Don Bosco is intended only to stimulate souls to a wider study of this loving Apostle of Youth, and so to a knowledge and reverence and appreciation, we dare to hope, which will urge them onward in the ways of holiness, and make them ardent and practical co-operators in the divine work of saving the young — the most pressing need of our times — initiated by the Founder of the Salesian Society, and brought to wonderful issues through the miraculous power of God and the loving intervention of Mary, Help of Christians...

Mae Watkins, a University of Michigan student, unexpectedly falls in love with a Chinese international law student in the midst of World War I. Despite the socially unacceptable pairing the couple decide to tie the knot and forge ahead with an unsure future. Mae demonstrates her unique ability to observe and describe a foreign culture after their move to Shanghai. She documents in detail her perceptions of Chinese fashion and food in addition to her knowledge of such controversial customs as foot binding and widow suicide...

“If, in these pages, written in remembrance of my father, I should tell you, my dear friends, nothing new of him, I can, at least, promise you that what I shall tell will be told faithfully, if simply, and perhaps there may be some things not familiar to you.” So begins chapter one of My Father as I Recall Him, the personal recollections of Mary Dickens, (Mamie, as she was called), the oldest daughter of the great novelist, Charles Dickens.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey will always be remembered as the Lord Chancellor who fell from power when he failed to obtain the annulment of King Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The eminent British historian, Mandell Creighton, writes that Wolsey was branded by Tudor historians as "the minion of the Pope, and the upholder of a foreign despotism." But the publication in the nineteenth century of the mass of documents relating to the reign of Henry VIII made possible a truer assessment of the visionary schemes of the great cardinal and of his underlying patriotism...

From the "Twelve English Statesmen," series of books. A brief history of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey who helped shape England's foreign policy through the early part of Henry VIII's reign, and beyond, along with his subsequent fall from grace when he failed to procure the King's divorce. - Summary by cavaet

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), also widely known as the Red Baron, was a German fighter pilot with the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) during World War I. He is considered the top ace of that war, being officially credited with 80 air combat victories.Originally a cavalryman, Richthofen transferred to the Air Service in 1915, becoming one of the first members of Jasta 2 in 1916. He quickly distinguished himself as a fighter pilot, and during 1917 became leader of Jasta 11 and then the larger unit Jagdgeschwader 1 (better known as the "Flying Circus")...

The Meditations is divided into 12 books that chronicle different periods of Marcus' life. Each book is not in chronological order and it was written for no one but himself. The style of writing that permeates the text is one that is simplified, straightforward, and perhaps reflecting Marcus' Stoic perspective on the text. Depending on the English translation, Marcus' style is not viewed as anything regal or belonging to royalty, but rather a man among other men which allows the reader to relate to his wisdom...

“The sweat-shop was for me the cradle of liberty. . . It was my first university.” Attending lectures and the New York theatre at night; by day sewing sleeves into shirts in a ghetto shop, Marcus Eli Ravage (1884-1965) began his transformation from “alien” to American. His 1917 autobiography is a paean to the transformative power of education. Ravage emigrated from Rumania in 1900, at the age of 16. After working for several years as a “sleever” to save money, he enrolls in the University of Missouri (the least expensive school he can find), where culture shock overwhelms him at first...

"Relates the story of Raleigh from his boyhood days on the coast of Devonshire, to his exploits in Ireland and his unexpected entry into the court of Queen Elizabeth. We travel with him as he pursues the ships of the Spanish Armada and makes voyages to the New World in search of gold and lands to settle. We see his efforts come to naught and hear how he is relegated to the Tower of London where he spends the last years of his life. Includes the fabled story of the velvet cloak and the role Raleigh played in introducing potatoes and tobacco to the Old World...

The story of Sir Walter Raleigh from his boyhood days to his exploits in Ireland and his unexpected entry into the court of Queen Elizabeth. We travel with him as he pursues the ships of the Spanish Armada and makes voyages to the New World in search of gold and lands to settle. We learn how he introduced potatoes and tobacco to England and Ireland. We hear how he is relegated to the Tower of London where he spends the last years of his life. The Story of Sir Walter Raleigh is a wonderful adventure.

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.

Phillips Brooks (1835 - 1893) was one of the finest and most famous clergyman in the nineteenth century; he was acknowledged as a masterful preacher. His teachings were filled with understanding, compassion, and encouragement. He spent most of his life as rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and served briefly as Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts at the end of it (1891 - 1893). His life was a course of gaining an increasing name as preacher and patriot. In addition to his moral stature, he was a man of great physical bearing as well, standing six feet four inches tall...

A river memoir documenting Twain’s early days as an apprentice steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. Reminiscing about his happy experiences as a young man under the instruction of an experienced mentor, the autobiographical tale depicts one of the most vivid illustrations of river life. Furthermore, the book captures the author’s nostalgic emotions through his resonant depiction of one of the most notable periods of his life. Twain begins his memoir with a rich historical account of the Mississippi River including its exploration by early explorers, its evolution, and its vastness...

“...if I should talk to a stenographer two hours a day for a hundred years, I should still never be able to set down a tenth part of the things which have interested me in my lifetime.” The words of Mark Twain in his introduction to Chapters from my Autobiography provide a tantalizing glimpse of what is in store for the reader! Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens was still working on his reminiscences when he died in 1910. This book is really only a portion of the complete work...

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...

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...

While the Mark Twain Project has created and released a three-volume Mark Twain autobiography with extensive annotations, in the 21st century, this two-volume autobiography was published in 1924 and contains many works never before released. It came 14 years after Twain's death and so, "speaking from the grave", he felt he could be "as frank and free and unembarrassed as a love letter". The autobiographical chapters that he published years earlier in the North American Review, were selected more for their acceptability and potential popularity than for their completely true reflection of his inner thoughts...

While the Mark Twain Project has created and released a three-volume Mark Twain autobiography with extensive annotations, in the 21st century, this two-volume autobiography was published in 1924 and contains many works never before released. It came 14 years after Twain's death and so, "speaking from the grave", he felt he could be "as frank and free and unembarrassed as a love letter". The autobiographical chapters that he published years earlier in the North American Review, were selected more for their acceptability and potential popularity than for their completely true reflection of his inner thoughts...

This is the lively autobiography of Martha Summerhayes, the wife of an officer in the American Army. Here, she tells many stories about life and conditions in different camps and forts in which she lived with her expanding family, people along the way, and Journeys.

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...

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...

A biography of Saint Joan of Arc, geared towards children, but also can easily be enjoyed by adults.

A fictionalized biography of George Mackay (1844-1901), an influential Presbyterian missionary in northern Taiwan.