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The Small House at Allington concerns the Dale family, who live in the Small House, a dower house intended for the widowed mother (Dowager) of the owner of the estate. The landowner, in this instance, is the bachelor Squire of Allington, Christopher Dale. Dale's mother having died, he has allocated the Small House, rent free, to his widowed sister-in-law and her daughters Isabella (Bell) and Lilian (Lily)....

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Romance, Satire, Politics

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Galatians is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of Early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia. Paul is principally concerned with the controversy surrounding Gentile Christians and the Mosaic Law within Early Christianity. The main theme of Ephesians is “the Church, the Body of Christ.” The Church is to maintain the unity in practice which Christ has brought about positionally. Another major theme in Ephesians is the keeping of Christ's body (that is, the Church) pure and holy. Philippians was written by the Apostle Paul circa 62 while Paul was in prison. The letter was written to the church at Philippi, one of the earliest churches to be founded in Europe. They were very attached to Paul, just as he was very fond of them. The Philippians had sent Epaphroditus, their messenger, with contributions to meet the needs of Paul; and on his return Paul sent this letter with him. Written in the 50s while Paul was in prison, Colossians is similar to Ephesians, also written at this time. Colossians declares Christ's supremacy over the entire created universe and exhorts Christians to lead godly live...

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Religion

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This book contains the record of a few of the many happy days and novel experiences which I have had in the wilds. For more than twenty years it has been my good fortune to live most of the time with nature, on the mountains of the West. I have made scores of long exploring rambles over the mountains in every season of the year, a nature-lover charmed with the birds and the trees. On my later excursions I have gone alone and without firearms. During three succeeding winters, in which I was a Government Experiment Officer and called the State Snow Observer, I scaled many of the higher peaks of the Rockies and made many studies on the upper slopes of these mountains. (Summary from the Preface of Wild Life on the Rockies )...

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Nature, Travel, Biography

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Preface: In making this abridgement of Boswell?s Life of Johnson I have omitted most of Boswell?s criticisms, comments, and notes, all of Johnson?s opinions in legal cases, most of the letters, and parts of the conversation dealing with matters which were of greater importance in Boswell?s day than now. I have kept in mind an old habit, common enough, I dare say, among its devotees, of opening the book of random, and reading wherever the eye falls upon a passage of especial interest. All such passages, I hope, have been retained, and enough of the whole book to illustrate all the phases of Johnson?s mind and of his time which Boswell observed....

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Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944), is best known today for his western fiction. Faust was born in Seattle, Washington and at an early age moved with his parents to the San Joaquin Valley in California where he worked as a ranchhand. After a failed attempt to enlist in the Great War in 1917 and with the help of Mark Twain's sister he met Robert Hobart Davis, editor of All-Story Weekly and became a regular contributor writting under his most used pseudonym “Max Brand”. He wrote in many genres during his career and produced more than 300 western novels and stories. His most famous characters were Destry and Dr. Kildare, both of which were produced in film. Faust was killed in Italy in 1944 as a front line war correspondent at the age of 51. He is buried in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy. Ronicky Doone (1926) is a hero of the west, respected by the law-abiding citizen and hated by bushwhacking bandits. Bill Gregg is a man in love, not about to be deflected from meeting his lady love for the first time, and willing to stand up to the living legend to reach her. This initial meeting leads to a friendship between th...

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Westerns

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Excerpt: Preface to the 1857 edition. I have been occupied with this story, during many working hours of two years. I must have been very ill employed, if I could not leave its merits and demerits as a whole, to express themselves on its being read as a whole. But, as it is not unreasonable to suppose that I may have held its threads with a more continuous attention than anyone else can have given them during its desultory publication, it is not unreasonable to ask that the weaving may be looked at in its completed state, and with the pattern finished....

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CONTENTS Preface to the 1857 Edition BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY 1. Sun and Shadow 2. Fellow Travellers 3. Home 4. Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream 5. Family Affairs 6. The Father of the Marshalsea 7. The Child of the Marshalsea 8. The Lock 9. little Mother 10. Containing the whole Science of Government 11. Let Loose 12. Bleeding Heart Yard 13. Patriarchal 14. Little Dorrit?s Party 15. Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream 16. Nobody?s Weakness 17. Nobody?s Rival 18. Little Dorrit?s Lover 19. The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations 20. Moving in Society 21. Mr Merdle?s Complaint 22. A Puzzle 23. Machinery in Motion 24. Fortune-Telling 25. Conspirators and Others 26. Nobody?s State of Mind 27. Five-and-Twenty 28. Nobody?s Disappearance 29. Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming 30. The Word of a Gentleman 31. Spirit 32. More Fortune-Telling...

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On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and traveling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed Lilia Herriton falls in love with both Italy and a handsome Italian much younger than herself, and decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law to Italy to prevent a misalliance, but he arrives too late. Lilia marries the Italian and in due course becomes pregnant again. When she dies giving birth to her child, the Herritons consider it both their right and their duty to travel to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant so that he can be raised as an Englishman. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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Florence Scovel Shinn, an illustrator living in New York City, became a teacher of New Thought after a divorce. New Thought was a movement which holds the belief that individuals can create their own reality through intentional thoughts and prayer, much like the current Law of Attraction movement. The Game of Life and How to Play It is her first book, and is remarkable for being written by a woman and meant for a genteel female audience. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Advice

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In der Abhandlung „Zum ewigen Frieden wendet Kant die Grundsätze seiner Moralphilosophie auf die Beziehungen zwischen Staaten an. Er stellt klar, dass Frieden kein natürlicher Zustand sei und deshalb gestiftet werden müsse. Um das Ziel „Weltfrieden“ zu verwirklichen, müssten sich die Staaten einem allgemein verbindlichen Völkerrecht unterordnen. In seinen Bestimmungen und Erläuterungen nimmt Kant zahlreiche Entwicklungen hin zum modernen Völkerrecht vorweg. In his essay Perpetual Peace, Kant applies the principles of his moral philosophy to the relations between nations. He points out that peace is not a natural state and therefore must be instituted through human effort. To make world peace come true, all nations should submit to general and binding international laws. In his definitions and explanations, Kant anticipates many aspects of the development of modern international law. (Summary by Al-Kadi)...

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Philosophy

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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. For anyone who has ever wondered what it was like for their grandparents or great grandparents to emmigrate from Europe to the United States last century, this is a fascinating narrative. Mary Antin went on to become an immigration rights activist. She also wrote an autobiography, The Promised Land, published in 1912, which detailed her assimilation into American culture. (Summary by Sue Anderson)...

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Memoirs

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The son of a notorious outlaw is adopted into a wealthy, law-abiding family as an infant after his father is killed in an attempted robbery. Will he follow in the footsteps of his outlaw father or will his life be guided by the respectable woman who nurtured him to manhood? Another exciting tale by the master of the pulp western, Max Brand. (Summary by Richard Kilmer)...

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Adventure, Fiction, Westerns

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Charley Steele is a successful and brilliant Canadian lawyer. He has a nagging wife, Kathleen, and a lazy brother-in- law, Billy. In spite of his success, he is disillusioned with his life, drinks too much, and is deeply troubled by his agnosticism which leads to trouble and confusion. When Billy embezzles money, Charley discovers the theft and sets out to make things right. Charley however, ends up in a waterfront saloon where he encounters a barroom brawl and becomes unconscious. Charley loses his memory and ends up in the Canadian Northwoods where he falls in love with a pretty postmistress, Rosalie. He finds he is perfectly content with his new life but when his memory returns, he is deeply disturbed by his past and ponders whether to return to his old life to make amends. Mystery, romance, and intrigue are interwoven throughout the novel. The Right of Way was made into movies in 1915, 1920, and 1931. (Summary by Tom Weiss)...

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Fiction

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Mary Barton is the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848. The story is set in the English city of Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the difficulties faced by the Victorian lower class. The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working class families. John Barton reveals himself to be a great questioner of the distribution of wealth and the relation between the rich and the poor. He also relates how his sister-in-law Esther has disappeared after she ran away from home. Soon afterwards Mrs Barton dies, and John is left with his daughter Mary to cope in the harsh world around them. Having already been deeply affected by the loss of his son Tom at a young age, after the death of his wife, Barton tackles depression and begins to involve himself in the Chartist movement connected with the trade unions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barton...

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Literature, Fiction

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During the time of the Judges when there was a famine, an Israelite family from Bethlehem - Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their sons Mahlon and Chilion - emigrate to the nearby country of Moab. Elimelech dies, and the sons marry two Moabite women: Mahlon marries Ruth and Chilion marries Orpah. Then Mahlon and Chilion also die. Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem. She tells her daughters-in-law to return to their own mothers, and remarry. Orpah reluctantly leaves; however, Ruth says, Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me. (Ruth 1:16-17 NIV) The two women return to Bethlehem. It is the time of the barley harvest, and in order to support her mother-in-law and herself, Ruth goes to the fields to glean. The field she goes to belongs to a man named Boaz, who is kind to her because he has heard of her loyalty to her mother-in-law. Ruth tells her mother-in-law of Boaz's kin...

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Religion

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The Way of Peace is your guide to the power of meditation; self and truth; the acquirement of spiritual power; the realization of selfless love; entering into the infinite; saints, sages, and saviors; the law of service; and the realization of perfect peace. (Summary by Andrea Fiore)...

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Instruction, Religion, Philosophy

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Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly parts between March 1852 and September 1853. It is widely held to be one of Dickens' finest and most complete novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. Dickens tells all of these both through the narrative of the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and as an omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly but depressive John Jarndyce and the childish Harold Skimpole. The plot concerns a long-running legal dispute (Jarndyce and Jarndyce) which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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Excerpt: ?But I say, Kid, isn?t that going it a little too strong? Whiskey and alcohol?s bad enough; but when it comes to brandy and peppersauce and?--?Dump it in. Who?s making this punch, anyway?? And Malemute Kid smiled benignantly through the clouds of steam. ?By the time you?ve been in this country as long as I have, my son, and lived on rabbit tracks and salmon-belly, you?ll learn that Christmas comes only once per annum. And a Christmas without punch is sinking a hole to bedrock with nary a pay-streak.? ......

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Table of Contents: To the Man on Trail, 1 -- The White Silence, 12 -- In a Far Country, 24 -- The Wisdom of the Trail, 44 -- An Odyssey of the North, 53 -- The Law of Life, 90 -- The God of His Fathers, 99 -- The League of the Old Men, 117 -- B?atard, 136 -- All Gold Canyon, 153 -- Love of Life, 177 -- The Wit of Porportuk, 201 -- The Apostate, 230 -- To Build a Fire, 254 -- South of the Slot, 274 -- The Chinago, 295 -- A Piece of Steak, 313 -- Mauki, 336 -- Koolau the Leper, 354 -- The Strength of the Strong, 373 -- War, 391 -- The Mexican, 398 -- Told in the Drooling Ward, 428...

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A pre-eminent legal firm gets far more than it bargained for when it hires the son of its late senior partner, Hopkins Toppleton, Sr., simply to retain the illustrious family name on the company masthead. Knowing Jr. is a loose cannon, their strategy is to pack him off to the UK to head up a European branch of the firm - a branch they have no intention of sending work. The unwitting Hopkins Toppleton, Jr. is, however, determined to make his mark. (Summary by Cathy Barratt)...

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Adventure, Humor, Fiction

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1 Maccabees is an apocryphal/deuterocanonical book written by a Jewish author after the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom, probably about 100 BC. It is included in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons. Protestants, Jews, and some others regard it as generally reliable historically, but not a part of Scripture. The setting of the book is about a century after the conquest of Judea by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, after Alexander's empire has been divided so that Judea was part of the Greek Seleucid Empire. It tells how the Greek ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to suppress the practice of basic Jewish religious law, resulting in a Jewish revolt against Seleucid rule. The book covers the whole of the revolt, from 175 to 134 BC, highlighting how the salvation of the Jewish people in this crisis came from God through Mattathias' family, particularly his sons, Judas Maccabeus, Jonathan Maccabaeus, and Simon Maccabaeus, and his grandson, John Hyrcanus. The doctrine expressed in the book reflects traditional Jewish teaching, without later doctrines found, for example, in 2 Maccabees. (Summary by Wikipedia, modi...

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Religion

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The Book of Nehemiah is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Told largely in the form of a first-person memoir, it concerns the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem by Nehemiah, a Jew who is a high official at the Persian court, and the dedication of the city and its people to God's laws (torah). The events take place in the second half of the 5th century BCE, and together with the Book of Ezra, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible. The book tells how Nehemiah, at the court of the king in Susa, is informed that Jerusalem is without walls and resolves to restore them. The king appoints him as governor of Judah and he travels to Jerusalem. There he rebuilds the walls, despite the opposition of Israel's enemies, and reforms the community in conformity with the law of Moses. After an absence in Susa he returns to find that the Israelites have been backsliding, taking non-Jewish wives, and stays to enforce the Law....

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History, Religion