Description Details
Originally published by the Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen while he was a professor at the University of Chicago in 1898, the Theory of the Leisure Class is considered one of the great works of economics as well as the first detailed critique of consumerism. In the book, Veblen argues that economic life is driven not by notions of utility, but by social vestiges from pre-historic times. [Summary modified from Wikipedia.]...

Description Details
This was originally a lecture given by Thoreau in 1851 at the Concord lyceum titled The Wild . He revised it before his death and it was included as part of the June 1862 edition of Atlantic Monthly. This essay appears, on the surface, to be simply expounding the qualities of Nature and man's place therein. Through this medium he not only touches those subjects, but with the implications of such a respect for nature, or lack thereof. (Summary by Chris Masterson)...

Excerpt Details
Essay/Short nonfiction

Description Details
A book reminiscent of the days when football was gaining popularity in America by MHAIJH85

Excerpt Details
Memoirs

Description Details
This is about a three-hundred mile trip across the Rocky Mountains on horseback with Howard Eaton. It is about fishing, and cool nights around a camp-fire, and long days on the trail. It is about a party of all sorts, from everywhere, of men and women, old and young, experienced folk and novices, who had yielded to a desire to belong to the sportsmen of the road. And it is by way of being advice also. Your true convert must always preach. (Introduction by Mary Roberts Rinehart quoted from the text.)...

Excerpt Details
Adventure, Advice, Memoirs, Nature, Travel

Description Details
History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria is the masterwork of one of the fathers of modern egyptology. This work, in twelve volumes, was translated from the French original, “Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique” and published in 1903-1904. Maspero was a largely self-taught master of hieroglyphic translation. In November 1880, he was placed at the head of a French archeological mission, which developed later into the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. Maspero then succeeded Mariette as director-general of excavations and of the antiquities of Egypt. “Aware that his reputation was then more as a linguist than an archaeologist, Maspero's first work in the post was to build on Mariette's achievements at Saqqara. He expanded their scope from the early Old Kingdom to the later, with particular interest in tombs with long and complete hieroglyphic inscriptions that could help illustrate the development of the Egyptian language. Selecting five later Old Kingdom tombs, he was successful in that aim, finding over 4000 lines of hieroglyphics which were then sketched and photographed. “As an aspect of his...

Excerpt Details
History

Description Details
The Surgeon of the late illustrious Lord NELSON feels himself called upon, from the responsible situation which he held on the eventful day of the 21st of October 1805, to lay before the British Nation the following Narrative. It contains an account of the most interesting incidents which occurred on board the Victory. (Lord NELSON's flag-ship) from the time of her sailing from England, in the month of September, till the day of battle inclusively. -William Beatty, M.D....

Excerpt Details
History

Description Details
History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria is the masterwork of one of the fathers of modern egyptology. This work, in twelve volumes, was translated from the French original, “Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique” and published in 1903-1904. Maspero was a largely self-taught master of hieroglyphic translation. In November 1880, he was placed at the head of a French archeological mission, which developed later into the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. Maspero then succeeded Mariette as director-general of excavations and of the antiquities of Egypt. “Aware that his reputation was then more as a linguist than an archaeologist, Maspero's first work in the post was to build on Mariette's achievements at Saqqara. He expanded their scope from the early Old Kingdom to the later, with particular interest in tombs with long and complete hieroglyphic inscriptions that could help illustrate the development of the Egyptian language. Selecting five later Old Kingdom tombs, he was successful in that aim, finding over 4000 lines of hieroglyphics which were then sketched and photographed. “As an aspect of his...

Excerpt Details
History

Description Details
“For the Irish Question has never been discussed in England. Men have discussed Home Rule; but those who advocated it most warmly, and as I think wisely, did not even know what the Irish meant by Home. Men have talked about Unionism; but they have never even dared to propose Union. A Unionist ought to mean a man who is not even conscious of the boundary of the two countries; who can walk across the frontier of fairyland, and not even notice the walking haystack. As a fact, the Unionist always shoots at the haystack; though he never hits it. But the limitation is not limited to Unionists; as I have already said, the English Radicals have been quite as incapable of going to the root of the matter. Half the case for Home Rule was that Ireland could not be trusted to the English Home Rulers. They also, to recur to the parable, have been unable to take the talking cow by the horns; for I need hardly say that the talking cow is an Irish bull. What has been the matter with their Irish politics was simply that they were English politics. They discussed the Irish Question; but they never seriously contemplated the Irish Answer.” (- Gilbert K...

Excerpt Details
Essay/Short nonfiction

Description Details
A Child's History of England first appeared in serial form, running from January 25, 1851 to December 10, 1853 and was first published in three volume book form in 1852, 1853, and 1854. Dickens dedicated the book to My own dear children, whom I hope it may help, bye and bye, to read with interest larger and better books on the same subject. The history covered the period between 50 BC and 1689, ending with a chapter summarising events from then until the ascension of Queen Victoria. (Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Children

Description Details
Hosea was the son of Beeri and a prophet in Israel in the 8th century BCE. He is one of the Twelve Prophets of the Jewish Hebrew Bible, also known as the Minor Prophets of the Christian Old Testament. We know practically nothing about the life or social status of Hosea. According to the Book of Hosea, he married the prostitute Gomer, the daughter of Diblatayim, at God's command. He lived in the Northern Kingdom in the period 740–725 BCE. In Hosea 5:8 ff., there is a reference to the wars which led to the capture of the kingdom by the Assyrians (ca. 734–732 BCE). It is not certain if he has also experienced the destruction of Samaria, which is foreseen in Hosea 14:1. Hosea's family life reflected the adulterous relationship which Israel had built with polytheistic gods. His children's names made them like walking prophecies of the fall of the ruling dynasty and the severed covenant with God — much like the prophet Isaiah a generation later. Hosea is often seen as a prophet of doom, but underneath his message of destruction is a promise of restoration. (From Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Religion

Description Details
Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. His successes may have made him the first show business millionaire. Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me, and his personal aims were to put money in his own coffers. (Reference: Wikipedia.org)...

Excerpt Details
Biography

Description Details
Jacques Cartier grew up as a sailor, married well and became an agent of exploration for King Francis I of France. In April, 1534, he sailed for the New World. Before sailing, his men took an oath that they would “behave themselves truly and faithfully in the service of the Most Christian King.” Jacques’ name was made immortal by the faithfulness with which he and his men carried out that oath. Summary from Christian History Institute Used with permision....

Excerpt Details
History

Description Details
The Compleat Angler is a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing in prose and verse. Walton did not profess to be an expert with the fly, but in the use of the live worm, the grasshopper and the frog Piscator could speak as a master. There were originally only two interlocutors in the opening scene, Piscator and Viator; but in the second edition, as if in answer to an objection that Piscator had it too much in his own way in praise of angling, he introduced the falconer, Auceps, changed Viator into Venator and made the new companions each dilate on the joys of his favourite sport....

Excerpt Details
Essay/Short nonfiction, Instruction

Description Details
Stanton H. King was from Barbados and followed his brothers to sea at the age of twelve in 1880. He spent only twelve years at sea for reasons given in this book. Thereafter, he became associated with the Sailors' Haven, Boston, Massachusetts and became its director. He was also a renowned Chantie singer and, in 1918, King's Book Of Chanties was published. King views the sailing life from before the mast, that is, through the eyes of the common sailor. (Summary by Peter Kelleher)...

Excerpt Details
Sea stories, Biography, Adventure

Description Details
Joshua Slocum was the first man to sail around the world alone in a small boat. He personally rebuilt an 11.2 metre sloop-rigged fishing boat that he named the Spray. On April 24, 1895, he set sail from Boston, Massachusetts. More than three years later, he returned to Newport, Rhode Island, on June 27, 1898 having circumnavigated the world, a distance of 46,000 miles (74,000 km). In 1899 he described the voyage in Sailing Alone Around the World now considered a classic of travel literature. It is a wonderful adventure story from the Age of Sail and a book of which Arthur Ransome declared, boys who do not like this book ought to be drowned at once. (Summary by Alan Chant and Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Biography, Sea stories, Adventure

Description Details
Sketches of the fair sex, in all parts of the world. To which are added rules for determining the precise figure, the degree of beauty, the habits, and the age of women, notwithstanding the aids and disguise of dress. It is our design to present a pleasing and interesting miscellany, which will serve to beguile the leisure hour, and will at the same time couple instruction with amusement. We have used but little method in the arrangement: Choosing rather to furnish the reader with a rich profusion of narratives and anecdotes, all tending to illustrate the FEMALE CHARACTER, to display its delicacy, its sweetness, its gentle or sometimes heroic virtues, its amiable weaknesses, and strange defects—than to attempt an accurate analysis of the hardest subject man ever attempted to master, viz—WOMAN. (Summary from the book)...

Excerpt Details
Psychology, Humor

Description Details
The title of this book quotes its object. To tell something of night hunting, and especially to suggest how the ever necessary dog can best be selected, trained, maintained and utilized, is the consideration of first importance. To round out the subject all forms of hunting will receive some notice, and the various breeds of dogs will be so far dealt with, that their value and usefulness in their given fields may be determined. Best of all, the contents of this volume are based on the opinions and declarations of men who have had years of experience in the matters on which they presume to write.(Extracted from the Introduction)...

Excerpt Details
Animals, Nature

Description Details
Robert C. Leslie (1826-1901) was an artist and writer who, at an early age fell in love with the sea, the sea of Sail, not of Steam. He describes the progression of this love from wave to wave and boat to boat. Leslie sailed during the Great Age of Sail before Industrialism had taken possession of Britain. Leslie comments on the early days of singlehanded small boat sailing: When I first began boating in the early forties[1840s], what is now called single-handed cruising was almost unknown among amateurs....people had a vague dread of it. Much of this has passed away, and hundreds of amateur boatmen, and even ladies, are now as much at home and really safer in a sailing-boat than they would be on the back of a hunter or bicycle. Leslie writes of one of his favorite cruising grounds about 1850: No railway in my time came within fifteen miles of Sidmouth, and the few enterprising visitors who reached there by coach from Exeter called it dull. It was certainly not a gay place, but most of those who resided there in that happy valley did so rather with a view to quiet, and among them it was rare to find any one disposed to tamper with t...

Excerpt Details
Biography, Sea stories

Description Details
Fishing with a Worm by Bliss Perry includes the poignant and philisophical observations of a fly fisherman lured by the worm. Bliss Perry was a professor of literature at Princeton and Harvard Universities and spent time in Vermont writing and fly fishing. (Summary written by Sadie, Betsie, and Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Philosophy, Essay/Short nonfiction

Description Details
History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria is the masterwork of one of the fathers of modern egyptology. This work, in twelve volumes, was translated from the French original, “Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique” by E. L. McClure and published in 1903-1904. Maspero was a largely self-taught master of hieroglyphic translation. In November 1880, he was placed at the head of a French archeological mission, which developed later into the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. Maspero then succeeded Mariette as director-general of excavations and of the antiquities of Egypt. “Aware that his reputation was then more as a linguist than an archaeologist, Maspero's first work in the post was to build on Mariette's achievements at Saqqara. He expanded their scope from the early Old Kingdom to the later, with particular interest in tombs with long and complete hieroglyphic inscriptions that could help illustrate the development of the Egyptian language. Selecting five later Old Kingdom tombs, he was successful in that aim, finding over 4000 lines of hieroglyphics which were then sketched and photographed. “As...

Excerpt Details
History