Rabbi Loeb creates a clay man to house a perfect soul that he hopes will not be blighted by human prejudices. The plan does not go as he hoped... This is one of many stories about the golem, all of which involve Rabbi Loeb , a 16th-century talmudic scholar known as The Maharal. Rodolf Lother was an Austrian writer. This story was published in the B'nai Brith journal The Menorah in 1896 and subsequently included in the author's German language book Der Golem: Phantasien und Historien . - Summary by Adrian Praetzellis

This poem celebrates Christmas by exploring the mystery of Christ's mission on earth: his death, resurrection, and second coming as judge of all human souls. Sir Gawain is cast in the role of Everyman. At the feast of the New Year, an unarmed green giant rides his green horse into the banqueting hall of King Arthur and challenges any member of the assembled company to behead him with a huge axe and then to submit to the same treatment from his victim the next year. Gawain volunteers to prevent Arthur from accepting this challenge, fairly confident that the challenger will be unfit to return the blow...

Count Almaviva's heart is stolen when he lays eyes on Rosine, but he worries that she will only love him for his money. Can Figaro help him? This comedy is the first play in Beaumarchais' Figaro trilogy. It was written in 1773, but because of political and legal problems, Beaumarchais could not stage the play until 1775. The Barber of Seville was adapted into at least five operas, the best-known being by Rossini. The other plays in the trilogy are The Follies of a Day: or the Marriage of Figaro and The Guilty Mother...

Puerto Rico was acquired by the United States in 1898 following the Spanish-American War. This volume was written in 1903 as Book XII in the series “The World and Its Peoples.” The series was intended for young people, but this work would be fun listening for those of any age interested in what Puerto Rico was like in the early 20th century. Intended to familiarize people in the U.S. with their new territory, topics include the island’s people, geography, climate, flora, fauna, and schools. There is also some coverage of Puerto Rican history and the new government established under U.S. rule.

Theria is a young Delphian woman who becomes an oracle. Persian wars, a doomed love affair, and a strong woman make up this well-researched novel set in Ancient Greece. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

The study of the origin and history of popular customs and beliefs affords an insight, otherwise unattainable, into the operations of the human mind in early times. Superstitions, however trivial in themselves, relics of paganism though they be, and oftentimes comparable to baneful weeds, are now considered proper subjects for scientific research. While the ignorant savage is a slave to many superstitious fancies which dominate his every action, the educated man strives to be free from such a bondage, yet recognizes as profitable the study of those same beliefs...

This panoramic history of the last days of Bourbon France opens with the death of Louis XIV in 1715 and the minority of the ill-educated, Louis XV. The financial genius, John Law, precipitates a market bubble, with speculators frantic to buy and sell shares. The King, indolent and sensual, is content to leave the government to his cardinals and his mistresses. Meanwhile, France loses India and North America in the Seven Years' War. In 1774, Louis XVI succeeds his grandfather. Well-intentioned, but ineffectual, he falls under the sway of Marie-Antoinette and her favorites, so that when at last competent ministers are found to confront France's problems, it is too late.

Following the chaos of the Wars of the Roses, the reigns of Henry VII and VIII were autocratic and centralized to an unprecedented degree. This slim volume by the British historian and educator, Charles Moberly, provides many interesting details about the reigns of these two monarchs. But the author also offers a clear picture of the European context in which they acted: the Reformation struggle, the rivalry between the King Francis I and Emperor Charles V, the influence of the Popes, and the struggle for Italy.

This collection is dedicated to recordings of short mythical or legendary works which are in the Public Domain. The stories tell of legends, heroes, myths, and ancient lore from many different cultures.

Short Stories in Prose and Verse” is Henry Lawson’s first published book ; his first published poem appeared in 1887. The volume is a snapshot of his writing style up to the start of his career. His first published poem appeared at age 20, his first published book at age 27. This volume is a good sample of Henry Lawson’s poetry and prose and makes a good stepping-stone towards the enjoyment of his later works. Summary by Chris Greaves

Hawai'i: land of wonder and beauty and a culture rich in history and mythology. Dr. Westervelt settled in Hawai'i as a young man and collected stories and myths from his adopted home. Here we have a collection dedicated to the largest city, Honolulu. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

A fictionalized biography of the famous frontiersman aimed at a juvenile audience.

Campbell Stuart, a Canadian, was involved in British efforts of propaganda during the two World Wars. His most active work was done during the first World War. This book is a detailed and illustrated account of his work during WWI, and more generally the efforts of British persons to direct propaganda campaigns against Germany and their allies with the intent of weakening German morale and shortening the war. Translations of some of the propaganda materials appear in the appendix and are read . - Summary by Patrick McHaffie

Buffalo Bill Cody is one of the most colorful figures of the early American West. In these adventures we find Billy Cody at age 13 earning a man’s wage as an extra on a wagon train when he meets Davy, two years younger. Together they are in one adventure after another, fighting with Indians, and pressing on to Pike's Peak. They both prove themselves courageous in the face of danger as they ride side-by-side and grow into manhood. - Summary by Larry Wilson

James Green was a Methodist minister who was a chaplain to Australian troops in the Boer War and in the Australian Imperial Force in World War I. This memoir was published 1917, while the war was on-going. “In spite of necessary suppression, or vagueness of names of localities, my comrades of the Fifty-fifth Battalion, to which I was attached, will recognize many of the incidents described, and I can only hope that reading what the padre has to say may cheer them in some lonely places, or help them to be happy though miserable in some indifferent billets...

“…I have charged Dame M. Columban to give a detailed account of all that has befallen the Community, since the coming of the Germans to Ypres till our safe arrival at Oulton Abbey. I can therefore certify that all that is in this little book, taken from the notes which several of the nuns had kept, is perfectly true, and only a simple narrative of our own personal experiences of the War.” The Abbey of the Irish Dames of Ypres was established in 1665. It was a favorite Abbey for the daughters of Irish nobility and was supported by influential Irish families living in exile...

The Counter-Reformation, also called the Catholic Reformation, and remembered for its infamous Inquisition, was the period of Catholic resurgence which was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. Adolphus Ward writes, that it was "a movement pursuing two objects...the regeneration of the Church of Rome, and the recovery of the losses inflicted upon her by the early successes of Protestantism...The onset of the combat is marked by the formal establishment of the Jesuit Order as a militant...

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

This collection is dedicated to recordings of short mythical or legendary works which are in the Public Domain. The stories tell of legends, heroes, myths, and ancient lore from many different cultures.

One of the earliest histories of the Cossacks to appear in English, with an emphasis on the exploits of famous Cossack leaders and Cossack struggles for political autonomy. Originally published in 1919. From the Foreword: "It is the proudest boast of the Cossacks of today -- as of their forbears of the Ukraine -- that they have never been classed as serfs nor for a moment lost their freeman's instinct for the principles of liberty. While the peasants of North Russia were bowed in shameful submission...

Gildas was a well-informed and definitely opinionated 6th century commentator on the topic of the era of the Roman occupation of Britain beginning in AD 43, the subsequent desertion of Britain by the legions in AD 410, and then invasions by the Scots, Picts and Saxons. Gildas was critical of his fellow Britons, accusing them of unwarranted rebellion against the beneficial rule of Roman law, and of then pusillanimously calling upon Rome to help them defend against the invading Picts and Scots from the north...

A short history of Ukrainian national aspirations, written by one of the most prominent Ukrainian historians. Published in the early months of World War I. - Summary by Kazbek

In 1837, the Danish Royal Society of Sciences offered a prize to any essayist who could satisfactorily answer the question, "Is the fountain and basis of Morals to be sought for in an idea of morality which lies directly in the consciousness , and in the analysis of the other leading ethical conceptions which arise from it? Or is it to be found in some other source of knowledge?" The Basis of Morality is the essay submitted in 1840 by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. In it, he first mercilessly...

An account of the origins of the wine industry in Victoria, Australia. Born in Neuchatel, Switzerland, Hubert de Castella was one of a number of friends of Governor Latrobe's wife to emigrate to Victoria. Finding the soil and climate suited to the production of fine wines, de Castella pioneered the growth of the wine industry in the state. - Summary by Philip Benson

This recording comprises two narratives. One is by Cora Mitchel who in 1861 was a girl in her mid-teens. Her Unionist family escaped the Confederacy from their home in south Georgia to Rhode Island. This is her story written about 1916. The second narrative is by Charlotte St. Julien Ravenel of South Carolina, a contemporary journal written in the closing months of the civil war in 1865. - Summary by David Wales

A children’s book that describes the life of ten boys in different historical time periods. The book shows the reader what the daily life of an average boy living in these various time periods would have been like, with descriptions of the kinds of houses they lived in, the food they ate, their education, clothing, religion, cultural customs, etc. The book begins in the ancient Indus River Valley, and moves along chronologically all the way up to the modern industrial era. - Summary by Virginia Neville

The book is dedicated to the island of Guernsey, where Victor Hugo spent 15 years in exile. Hugo uses the setting of a small island community to convert seemingly mundane events into drama of the highest caliber. Set just after the Napoleonic Wars, Toilers of the Sea deals with the impact of the Industrial Revolution upon the island. The story concerns a Guernseyman named Gilliatt, a social outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of a local shipowner, Mess Lethierry. When Lethierry's ship is wrecked on a perilous reef, Deruchette promises to marry whoever can salvage the ship's steam engine...

A fairly scholarly, short survey of religious sexual symbols and practices from ancient times to the near-present, and within various countries and religions. The essay is coloured by liberality and acceptance of common themes between different religions. Note: "phallic" in the context of this work refers to both male and female genitalia.

Colonel Archibald Gracie was the first survivor of the sinking of the Titanic to die, and this first-hand account was published posthumously. He attempts to dispel some of the rumors surrounding the tragic event and gives his personal observations and an account of his survival clinging to the hull of an overturned collapsible lifeboat after helping many others to escape safely. A large portion of the book is given to personal accounts of other survivors from both the American and British boards of inquiry, boat by boat. - Summary by Larry Wilson

David Hume justly takes rank as the most distinguished member of that brilliant circle of literary men whose names gave such a lustre to the second half of the eighteenth century in Scotland. His speculations were the most profound, and, with the possible exception of Adam Smith in a particular department, his influence was the widest and most deeply felt, of any. But even his warmest friends could scarcely have predicted the influence he was destined to exercise, or the important results that were to spring from his thoughts...

The Appeal grabbed readers’ attention in as dramatic a manner as Walker could have possibly imagined. In her book, Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought, Kirsten Waters writes about how the pamphlet itself was viewed as dangerous by pro-slavery forces, while Walker actively worked to get his text in the hands of Black readers. He did not direct his writing to White audiences, and in the third edition added a special message to Black readers, saying that: It is expected that...

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