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This is a true account by American woman journalist who, in 1889, set out to see whether she could beat the fictional journey in Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. Wearing one dress and carrying one handbag, Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (pen name “Nellie Bly”), reported her travels back to avid readers in America. (Summary by Mary Reagan)...

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1845, Louise Aston lebt als geschiedene Frau in Berlin und bewegt sich in intellektuellen Kreisen. Sie raucht in der Öffentlichkeit und trägt Männerkleider. Anonyme Beschwerden über sie führen zu polizeilicher Überwachung. Schließlich wird sie als staatsgefährliche Person aus Berlin ausgewiesen. In ihrem 1846 erschienen Buch Meine Emancipation, Verweisung und Rechtfertigung legt sie ihren Fall der deutschen Öffentlichkeit vor und plädiert leidenschaftlich für die Gleichheit der Geschlechter und das Recht der Frau auf freie Entfaltung ihrer Persönlichkeit. (Summary by Hokuspokus)...

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This book is a collection of short biographies of notable women, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, Florence Nightingale, and many others. (Summary by Arielle Lipshaw)...

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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. (Summary from the text and Laura Caldwell)...

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Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones) was a legendary labor organizer. She was a founding member of the International Workers of the World (the IWW, or the Wobblies), and was active in the United Mine Workers and the Socialist Party of America. (Summary by Denny)...

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This biography of the inventor covers his early years, successes and failures, and legacy. (Summary by Bill Boerst)

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G. K. Chesterton was a great admirer of Charles Dickens, and wrote a noted critique of Dickens' works expressing his opinion in his own inimitable style. (Summary by Karen Merline)...

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Lärm. Lärm. Lärm. Kaum, dass man sich konzentrieren kann, kaum, dass man ihm entfliehen. Lärm, der allgegenwärtige…

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A short self portrait of Powys’ beliefs, temperament and peculiarities which prefigures his later, greater Autobiography. (Summary by Keri Ford)

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The Autobiography of Cockney Tom, Showing his Struggles through Life,and proving this Truth of the Old Saying that Honesty is the best Policy. Set in England, South Australia and the goldfields of Victoria Australia in the 1800's. (Summary from the book and Richard Schipper)...

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Childhood (Детство [Detstvo]; 1852) is the first novel in Leo Tolstoy’s autobiographical trilogy. They are the works that launched his writing career. These books earned him instant acclaim. This book describes the major physiological decisions of boyhood that all boys experience....

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Beau Nash (1674–1762), born Richard Nash, was a celebrated dandy and leader of fashion in 18th-century Britain. He is best remembered as the Master of Ceremonies at the spa town of Bath. (Wikipedia) This, the best of Goldsmith's Biographies, was published the year after Nash's death. It was at once popular, and went through two editions in the same year in which it was published. To the second edition (it never reached a third), Goldsmith made many important additions. Yet strange to say none of these have been attended to by the editors of his Works. The text of this reprint is that of the second edition, compared with the first. The text of previous editions has been that of a mutilated first impression. (Peter Cunningham, Editor)...

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The Memoir of my Aunt, Jane Austen, has been received with more favour than I had ventured to expect. The notices taken of it in the periodical press, as well as letters addressed to me by many with whom I am not personally acquainted, show that an unabated interest is still taken in every particular that can be told about her. I am thus encouraged not only to offer a Second Edition of the Memoir, but also to enlarge it with some additional matter which I might have scrupled to intrude on the public if they had not thus seemed to call for it. In the present Edition, the narrative is somewhat enlarged, and a few more letters are added; with a short specimen of her childish stories. The cancelled chapter of ‘Persuasion’ is given, in compliance with wishes both publicly and privately expressed. A fragment of a story entitled ‘The Watsons’ is printed; p. iii and extracts are given from a novel which she had begun a few months before her death; but the chief addition is a short tale never before published, called ‘Lady Susan.’ {0a} I regret that the little which I have been able to add could not appear in my First Edition; as much of it ...

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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. (Summary by Elaine Webb)...

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Charlotte Bronte was a British author, the eldest of the three famous Bronte sisters who have become standards of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, one of the greatest classics of all time. Just two years after Charlotte's death, her friend Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her biography. Want to know more about Charlotte Bronte? If you do, please read this biography. Summary by Stav Nisser....

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In 1881, Mrs. Cecil Hall's brother went to Manitoba to farm. In 1882, she went out for a visit of some two months, and followed that visit with a long sojourn in Colorado, returning to England as the snows began to fall. While there, she had to give up her Lady's ways and help on the farm in many ways she'd never stoop to at home. She makes hay, cooks, paints the barn roof, and cleans. Through it all, the newness helped her keep her temper, and these letters home show an insight into the settlement of Western Canada. These letters have a feel of Little House on the Prarie from an English lady's point of view. (Summary by Sibella Denton)....

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Franklin wrote his autobiography in the form of an extended letter to his son. While recording the events of his life, he adds instructions for good living which makes this work America’s first “How to Succeed” book. (Summary by Gary)...

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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. (Summary by Hugh)...

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George Stephenson did not invent the steam engine, that was due to Newcomen and later to James Watt. He did not invent the steam locomotive, that was due to a number of people including Cugnot, Trevithick and others. He did not invent the Railway. Railways or tramways had been in use for two hundred years before Stephenson. The reason why Stephenson was known as ‘The father of the steam locomotive’ was that he took a primitive, unreliable and wholly uneconomic device and turning it into an efficient machine not very different to those which ran until fifty or so years ago, married it with the iron rail and alone, and against considerable opposition,began, via the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and then the London and Birmingham Railway, the development of steam railways in England and the world. George Stephenson began life in 1781 in the worst and poorest of all circumstances, he did not learn to read until he was twenty years old, but he, together with his son Robert, became the foremost engineers in the railway world. If, in the middle years of the nineteenth century you wanted to build a ra...

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Do you love books? No, I mean REALLY love books? These series of sketches on the delights, adventures, and misadventures connected with bibliomania (bibliomania is characterized by the collecting of books which have no use to the collector nor any great intrinsic value to a genuine book collector. The purchase of multiple copies of the same book and edition and the accumulation of books beyond possible capacity of use or enjoyment are frequent symptoms of bibliomania.). The author wholeheartedly enjoyed this pursuit all his life and his descriptions are delightful to read. Anyone who has lovingly held a book, smelled it, and enjoyed it for being just what it is, will understand what the author puts so well. According to the author, collectors may be grouped in three classes: Those who collect from vanity, those who collect for the benefits of learning and those who collect out of veneration and love for books. Mr. Field fell squarly in the latter category. Summary from the preface and Phil Chenevert)...

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