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Excerpt: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.

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Excerpt: The Champion Of His Country. When young Nevil Beauchamp was throwing off his midshipman?s jacket for a holiday in the garb of peace, we had across Channel a host of dreadful military officers flashing swords at us for some critical observations of ours upon their sovereign, threatening Africa?s fires and savagery....

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Excerpt: PREFACE; This book is essentially a desultory book, the result of intermittent observation, and often, no doubt, of rash assumption. Having been written in Paris, at odd moments, during the last two years of the war, it could hardly be more than a series of disjointed notes; and the excuse for its publication lies in the fact that the very conditions which made more consecutive work impossible also gave unprecedented opportunities for quick notation. The world since has been like a house on fire. All the lodgers are on the stairs, in dishabille. Their doors are swinging wide, and one gets glimpses of their furniture, revelations of their habits, and whiffs of their cooking, that a life-time of ordinary intercourse would not offer. Superficial differences vanish, and so (how much oftener) do superficial resemblances; while deep unsuspected similarities and disagreements, deep common attractions and repulsions, declare themselves. It is one of these fundamental substances that the new link between France and America is made, and some reasons for the strength of the link ought to be discoverable in the suddenly bared depths of...

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Table of Contents: Preface, 1 -- I ?First Impression, 4 -- I, 4 -- II, 6 -- III, 8 -- II? Reverence, 10 -- I, 10 -- II, 13 -- III, 15 -- III? Taste, 17 -- I, 17 -- II, 17 -- III, 18 -- IV, 21 -- IV? Intellectual Honesty, 24 -- I, 24 -- II, 26 -- III, 28 -- V? Continuity, 31 -- I, 31 -- II, 32 -- III, 35 -- IV, 37 -- VI? The New Frenchwoman, 39 -- VII? In Conclusion, 48 -- I, 48 -- II, 52 -- III, 53...

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The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today is an 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner that satirizes greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America. The term gilded age , commonly given to the era, comes from the title of this book. Twain and Warner got the name from Shakespeare's King John (1595): To gild refined gold, to paint the lily... is wasteful and ridiculous excess. Gilding a lily, which is already beautiful and not in need of further adornment, is excessive and wasteful, characteristics of the age Twain and Warner wrote about in their novel. Another interpretation of the title, of course, is the contrast between an ideal Golden Age, and a less worthy Gilded Age, as gilding is only a thin layer of gold over baser metal, so the title now takes on a pejorative meaning as to the novel's time, events and people. Although not one of Twain's more well-known works, it has appeared in more than 100 editions since its original publication in 1873. Twain and Warner originally had planned to issue the novel with illustrations by Thomas Nast. The book is remarkable for two reasons–-it is the only novel Twain wrote with a c...

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Fiction, Satire

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The expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, for exploring the river Missouri, and the best communication from that to the Pacific Ocean, has had all the success which could be expected. They have traced the Missouri nearly to its source; descended the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, ascertained with accuracy the Geography, of that interesting communication across the continent; learned the character of the country, its commerce and inhabitants; and it is but justice to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, and their brave companions, have, by this arduous service, deserved well of their country. This volume is the 1840 edition with woodcut images and an Indian vocabulary. They may be viewed by clicking on the text URL. (Summary in quotes by President Thomas Jefferson)...

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History, Travel

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Excerpt: Chapter 1 Exposition. Notwithstanding the discipline which Marechal Suchet had introduced into his army corps, he was unable to prevent a short period of trouble and disorder at the taking of Tarragona. According to certain fair-minded military men, this intoxication of victory bore a striking resemblance to pillage, though the marechal promptly suppressed it. Order being re-established, each regiment quartered in its respective lines, and the commandant of the city appointed, military administration began. The place assumed a mongrel aspect. Though all things were organized on a French system, the Spaniards were left free to follow ?in petto? their national tastes....

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The Journal of Submarine Commander Von Forstner is a graphic account of WWI submarine warfare. Forstner was the commander of German U-boat U-28. His journal, first published 1916, gives a gritty picture of daily life inside a submarine and details several torpedo attacks on Allied shipping. The 1917 translation of Forstner’s journal into English was unquestionably intended to bolster the Allied war effort. In the foreword, the translator states: “Nothing at the present day has aroused such fear as this invisible enemy, nor has anything outraged the civilized world like the tragedies caused by the German submarines.” This audio read of Forstner’s journal was prompted by a tour of a captured WWII German U-505 submarine, which is a prime draw at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The sub’s interior is not for claustrophobics--a hunkered maze of pipes and valves, banks of engines and batteries that leave very little room for humans. Particularly arresting are the sleeping quarters--bunks cozy’d up with the 15 foot long torpedoes. (Introduction by Sue Anderson)...

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Adventure, History, Memoirs, Sea stories, War stories

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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. Breckinridge. However, overall “The Story of Abraham Lincoln” is a good summarization and interesting account of the life, values and politics of Lincoln. Cautions: Chapter 7 contains a single use of an epithet for African-Americans in a quotation from a British magazine. Chapter 8 ends with an example of a stereotypical Southern black dialect which many may find offensive. (Summary by John Lieder.)...

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History, Children, Biography

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Excerpt: Reprinted from Fraser?s Magazine. The cloud which for the space of a month hung gloomily over the civilized world, black with far worse evils than those of simple war, has passed from over our heads without bursting. The fear has not been realized, that the only two first-rate Powers who are also free nations would take to tearing each other in pieces, both the one and the other in a bad and odious cause. For while, on the American side, the war would have been one of reckless persistency in wrong, on ours it would have been a war in alliance with, and, to practical purposes, in defence and propagation of, slavery. We had, indeed, been wronged....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Foreigner At Home. ?This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin? o?t.? Two recent books* one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael?s Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of...

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Contents CHAPTER I: THE FOREIGNER AT HOME ..................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER II: SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES................................................................................ 14 CHAPTER III: OLD MORTALITY .................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER IV: A COLLEGE MAGAZINE ...................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER V: AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER ............................................................................. 36 CHAPTER VI: PASTORAL .............................................................................................................. 41 CHAPTER VII: THE MANSE .......................................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER VIII: MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET .................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER IX: THOMAS STEVENSON ? CIVIL ENGINEER...................................................... 58 CHAPTER X: TALK AND TALKERS ....................

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Charles Beard was the most influential American historian of the early 20th century. He published hundreds of monographs, textbooks and interpretive studies in both history and political science. He graduated from DePauw University in 1898, where he met and eventually married Mary Ritter Beard, one of the founders of the first greek-letter society for women, Kappa Alpha Theta. Many of his books were written in collaboration with his wife, whose own interests lay in feminism and the labor union movement.In 1921, Charles and Mary Beard published their textbook: History of the United States. A contemporaneous review stated: The authors… assume enough maturity in…students to justify a topical rather than a chronological treatment. They have dealt with movements, have sketched large backgrounds, have traced causes, and have discussed the interrelation of social and economic forces and politics. All this has been directed to the large purpose of helping the student to understand American today in all its national characteristics and as part of world civilization as well..The literary style is exceptionally clear and crisp, and the whole a...

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History

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Excerpt: Here is a tale which extends over many years and travels into many countries. By a peculiar fitness of circumstance the writer began, continued it, and concluded it among distant and diverse scenes. Above all, he was much upon the sea. The character and fortune of the fraternal enemies, the hall and shrubbery of Durrisdeer, the problem of Mackellar?s homespun and how to shape it for superior flights; these were his company on deck in many star-reflecting harbours, ran often in his mind at sea to the tune of slatting canvas, and were dismissed (something of the suddenest) on the approach of squalls. It is my hope that these surroundings of its manufacture may to some degree find favour for my story with seafarers and sea-lovers like yourselves....

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Excerpt: Of all the spots on the world?s surface that I, George Walker, of Friday Street, London, have ever visited, Suez in Egypt, at the head of the Red Sea, is by far the vilest, the most unpleasant, and the least interesting. There are no women there, no water, and no vegetation. It is surrounded, and indeed often filled, by a world of sand. A scorching sun is always overhead; and one is domiciled in a huge cavernous hotel, which seems to have been made purposely destitute of all the comforts of civilized life. Nevertheless, in looking back upon the week of my life which I spent there I always enjoy a certain sort of triumph;--or rather, upon one day of that week, which lends a sort of halo not only to my sojourn at Suez, but to the whole period of my residence in Egypt....

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Excerpt: ?Phantasmagoria and Other Poems? by Lewis Carroll.

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Contents Phantasmagoria 4 PHANTASMAGORIA 4 CANTO I - The Trystyng 4 CANTO II - Hys Fyve Rules 7 CANTO III - Scarmoges 10 CANTO IV - Hys Nouryture 13 CANTO V - Byckerment 16 ECHOES 24 A SEA DIRGE 25 Ye Carpette Knyghte 26 HIAWATHA?S PHOTOGRAPHING 27 MELANCHOLETTA 30 A VALENTINE 32 THE THREE VOICES 33 TEMA CON VARIAZIONI 42 A GAME OF FIVES 43 POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR 44 SIZE AND TEARS 46 ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN 48 THE LANG COORTIN? 49 FOUR RIDDLES 53 FAME?S PENNY-TRUMPET 58...

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Excerpt: Four years ago--in 1874--two young Englishmen had occasion to go to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer, and, arriving in New York on the first day of August, were much struck with the fervid temperature of that city. Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed into one of those huge high-hung coaches which convey passengers to the hotels, and with a great deal of bouncing and bumping, took their course through Broadway. The midsummer aspect of New York is not, perhaps, the most favorable one; still, it is not without its picturesque and even brilliant side....

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Excerpt: Enoch Arden. Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm; And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands; Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf In cluster; then a moulder?d church; and higher A long street climbs to one tall-tower?d mill; And high in heaven behind it a gray down With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood, By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes Green in a cuplike hollow of the down....

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Contents ENOCH ARDEN.......................................................................................................................................................... 4 AYLMER?S FIELD. ..................................................................................................................................................... 23 SEA DREAMS ............................................................................................................................................................. 39 NORTHERN FARMER................................................................................................................................................ 49 MISCELLANEOUS..................................................................................................................................................... 52 TITHONUS.................................................................................................................................................................. 52 THE VOYAGE .........................................................................................................................

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Excerpt: In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower Normandy a young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, brought on by overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His convalescence demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, and freedom from excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of Bessin seemed to offer all these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, a picturesque place about six miles from the sea, the patient therefore betook himself, and was received with the cordiality characteristic of relatives who lead very retired lives, and regard a new arrival as a godsend....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Village ?AND A MIGHTY SING?LAR and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days of my life!? said Captain Jorgan, looking up at it. Captain Jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village was built sheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff. There was no road in it, there was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in it. From the sea-beach to the cliff-top two irregular rows of white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting here and there....

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Excerpt: How Sir Galahad fought at a tournament, and how he was known of Sir Gawaine and Sir Ector de Maris. Now saith this story, when Galahad had rescued Percivale from the twenty knights, he yede tho into a waste forest wherein he rode many journeys; and he found many adventures the which he brought to an end, whereof the story maketh here no mention. Then he took his way to the sea on a day, and it befell as he passed by a castle where was a wonder tournament, but they without had done so much that they within were put to the worse, yet were they within good knights enough....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Eilean Aros. It was a beautiful morning in the late July when I set forth on foot for the last time for Aros. A boat had put me ashore the night before at Grisapol; I had such breakfast as the little inn afforded, and, leaving all my baggage till I had an occasion to come round for it by sea, struck right across the promontory with a cheerful heart....

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Contents THE MERRY MEN .......................................................................................4 WILL O? THE MILL...................................................................................50 MARKHEIM ................................................................................................74 THRAWN JANET ........................................................................................90 OLALLA .....................................................................................................100 THE TREASURE OF FRANCHARD......................................................140...