Padre Quadrupani was an Italian priest and member of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul, also known as the Barnabites, from their association with St. Barnabas Catholic Church in Milan, Italy. Quadrupani's spirituality is based on that of the illustrious Doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622). Like St. Francis, the Padre offers spiritual advice that is practical and balanced. Perhaps it is owing to this that Quadrupani's treatise has been so well received by Catholic laypersons and has been recommended by numerous bishops over the years...

Frances Baird is a detective with the Watkins Agency of New York City. She and a colleague are sent undercover to "The Maples" to guard a valuable set of diamonds during the festivities leading up to the marriage of Mr. Deneen's eldest son, James Jr. Within a few hours of their arrival, however, this seemingly simple task turns into something much more sinister, and it is ultimately left to Frances to unravel the truth of the matter.

Celtic Fairy Tales is a collection of 25 folk and fairy stories collected from Ireland and Scotland. At what I imagine is the Frontispiece, or the dedication page, is the phrase: “SAY THIS Three times, with your eyes shut ‘Mothuighim boladh an Éireannaigh bhinn bhreugaigh faoi m’fhóidín dúthaigh.’And you will see/What you will see_” A loose translation of this Gaelic phrase is “I sense the smell of a sweet, enchanting Irishman around my dear homeplace.”

Wessex Tales is a collection of six short stories written by Hardy in the 1880’s. If you’ve never read Hardy they’ll serve as a good introduction to his writing. Though not as comprehensive as his major works they do contain all the ingredients that make him instantly recognisable. (Introduction by T. Hynes.)

Uncle Remus, that genial old storyteller, knows how to spin these wonderful tales about the 'criteers' that the little 6 year old boy (and many of us adults!) love to listen to. Yet the 'Brer Rabbit and 'Brer Fox and the others sound a lot like the people all around us. They tell stories about personalities and faults and virtues in a way that is unique to Uncle Remus. As the shadows grow longer outside, draw up a rocking chair next to the little boy, settle back and listen to the wise old man tell these stories...

Abigail Adams lived the American Revolution as the wife of one of its central figures--John Adams. Her family correspondence, published along with a memoir by her grandson, Charles Francis Adams, brings that era into eloquent focus. What was it like to hear the cannon's roar from your window? to face pestilence? food shortages? rampant inflation? devalued coinage? to raise four children alone--and earn the money to keep your household afloat, while your husband was engaged in politics and diplomacy miles and oceans away ...

Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) was a British Particular Baptist preacher and is still known today as the "Prince of Preachers". He was a strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church in agreement with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith understanding, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day. In his lifetime, Spurgeon preached to around 10 million people, often up to ten times each week at different places...

Charles W. Eliot, 21st President of Harvard University, edited this volume of prefaces ... authored by a Who's Who of World Literature: Bacon, Calvin, Caxton, Condell, Copernicus, Dryden, Fielding, Goethe, Heminge, Hugo, Johnson, Knox, Newton, Raleigh, Spenser, Taine, Whitman and Wordsworth. Eliot wrote in his preface to these prefaces, "No part of a book is so intimate as the Preface. Here, after the long labor of the work is over, the author descends from his platform, and speaks with his reader as man to man, disclosing his hopes and fears, seeking sympathy for his difficulties, offering defence or defiance, according to his temper, against the criticisms which he anticipates."

Twice-Told Tales is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first was published in the spring of 1837, and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence the name. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a touch of active realism to all her writings.In "A Spinner in the Sun" she tells an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled lady who lives in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of romance

On the Heavens (Greek: Περί ουρανού, Latin: De Caelo or De Caelo et Mundo) is Aristotle's chief cosmological treatise. In it Aristotle argues that the Earth is a sphere by pointing to the evidence of lunar eclipses. Aristotle also provides a detailed explanation of his theory of 'gravity' arguing that things which contain 'earth' fall towards the centre of the Universe because 'earth' is naturally attracted to the centre of the Universe. Aristotle argues that if the planet Earth was moved to the location of the Moon then objects which contain 'earth' would not fall towards the centre of the Earth but rather towards the centre of the Universe...

Can a spaceship go crazy? Well, yes it can if it has a brain. And the new MG (magnetogravitic drive) experimental robot space ship does indeed have a 'brain'. Completely bewildered as to why the first six models of their supposedly perfect new ship model, the MG-YR, nicknamed the McGuire, have gone totally bonkers after activation and before they could ever be used, the company has called in the services of Daniel Oak. They suspect sabotage of course. Daniel Oak is the hard boiled private investigator with nerves of steel and a mind of the same substance...

Louis Hughes was born a slave near Charlottesville, Virginia to a white father and a black slave woman. Throughout his life he worked mostly as a house servant, but was privy to the intimate details and workings of the entire McGee cotton plantation and empire.In Thirty Years A Slave Hughes provides vivid descriptions and explicit accounts of how the McGee plantation in Mississippi, and the McGee mansion in Tennessee functioned--accounts of the lives of the many slaves that lived, suffered and sometimes died under the cruel and unusual punishments meted out by Boss and his monstrously unstable and vindictive wife...

This is a collection of works -- short stories or poetry -- by women writers in English from around the world and first published before 1923.

From the Preface of The Speaking Voice: principles of training simplified and condensed: "This book offers a method of voice training which is the result of a deliberate effort to simplify and condense, for general use, the principles which are fundamental to all recognized systems of vocal instruction. It contains practical directions accompanied by simple and fundamental exercises, first for the freeing of the voice and then for developing it when free."Parts I and II of the book comprise advice...

Upton Sinclair is best known for his novel The Jungle, an expose of the meatpacking industry. He was also a playwright whose works for the stage reflected the same progressive viewpoints found in his other writing. In The Machine, published as part of Sinclair's 1912 collection Plays of Protest, Socialist activists show a rich man's daughter the truth about the society in which she has been raised.

William Bernard Ullathorne was a Benedictine monk and Roman Catholic priest who ministered in Australia from 1833 until 1840 and then returned to his native England, where he was ordained a bishop in 1847 and served as Bishop of Birmingham from 1850 until 1888. He is best known for his catechetical trilogy: The Endowments of Man, The Groundwork of the Christian Virtues, and Christian Patience, published in the 1880s. Christian Patience is presented in twelve lectures. Bishop Ullathorne teaches that Christian patience is both a special virtue and a universal virtue...

From the moment Madame Sara arrived on the scene, she has taken London society by storm. Madame is both beautiful and mysterious, but it soon becomes clear to both Dixon Druce and his friend, police surgeon Eric Vandeleur, that there is something sinister about the woman and the goings on at her shop on the Strand. They soon become obsessed with proving her guilty of the many crimes that follow in her wake!

County Prosecutor Wally Brighton was found shot to death one evening, a broken rosary in one hand and a .32 automatic inches away from the other. Was it murder or suicide? It takes two sharp-eyed reporters, who combine romance with amateur sleuthing, to find the surprising solution to this baffling and thrilling murder mystery.

A short, simple New Testament Bible History for children, but which can also be enjoyed by adults alike. Starting with St. John the Baptist, and running through the beginning years of the Church, the sections cover Our Lord's birth, public life, miracles, death, resurrection and more. This is the companion volume to My Bible History: New Testament - by the same author.

Compiled from the much larger 12 book set of "Butler's Lives of the Saints", this volume contains short biographies of the Saints, for each day of the year, followed by a reflection for each entry.

On Generation and Corruption (Ancient Greek: Περὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς, Latin: De Generatione et Corruptione, also known as On Coming to Be and Passing Away) is a treatise by Aristotle. Like many of his texts, it is both scientific and philosophic (although not necessarily scientific in the modern sense). The philosophy, though, is essentially empirical; as in all Aristotle's works, the deductions made about the unexperienced and unobservable are based on observations and real experiences...

Published in 1899 by Houghton Mifflin, Chesnutt's first book, The Conjure Woman, was a collection of seven short stories, all set in "Patesville" (Fayetteville), North Carolina. While drawing from local color traditions and relying on dialect, Chesnutt's tales of conjuring, a form of magic rooted in African hoodoo, refused to romanticize slave life or the "Old South." Though necessarily informed by Joel Chandler Harris's popular Uncle Remus stories and Thomas Nelson Page's plantation fiction, The Conjure Woman consciously moved away from these models, instead offering an almost biting examination of pre- and post-Civil War race relations...

New Arabian Nights is a collection of short stories which include Robert Louis Stevenson's earliest fiction as well as those considered his best work in the genre. The first and longest story stars Prince Florizel of Bohemia who appears in the later collection of stories "More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter."

Satyricon (or Satyrica) is a Latin work of fiction in a mixture of prose and poetry. It is believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as a certain Titus Petronius. As with the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, classical scholars often describe it as a "Roman novel", without necessarily implying continuity with the modern literary form.The surviving portions of the text detail the misadventures of the narrator, Encolpius, and his lover, a handsome sixteen-year-old boy named Giton...

The main idea of "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" (1880) was distinguishing scientific socialism and utopian socialism. Engels begins by chronicaling the thought of utopian socialists, starting with Saint-Simon. He then proceeds to Fourier and Robert Owen. In chapter two, he summarizes dialectics, and then chronicles the thought from the ancient Greeks to Hegel. Chapter three summarizes dialectics in relation to economic and social struggles, essentially echoing the words of Marx.

It is pleasant to have another book about a group of merry, natural girls, who have the attractions of innocence and youthful faults. "The Sweet Sixteen" Club made fudge, and went on picnics, and behaved just as jolly, nice maidens should. (The Outlook, vol. 82, Mar. 24, 1906)

Diana Starling is the beautiful and quiet daughter of a cold and mentally abusive mother. She falls in love with Evan Nolton, but her mother wishes her to marry someone else. Yet, despite her mother's strong objections, she chooses her own husband. However, she can be truly happy only if she forgets her first love. Will she find the strength do do that? (Introduction by Stav Nisser)

The year is 1838. The scene is the dense Honduran forest along the Copán River. Two men, John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, are about to rediscover Mayan civilization. Their guide, slashing through the rampant growth with his machete, leads them to a structure with steps up the side, shaped like a pyramid. Next they see a stone column, fourteen feet high, sculptured on the front with a portrait of a man, “solemn, stern and well fitted to excite terror,” covered on the sides with hieroglyphics, and with workmanship “equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians...

A collection of 65 little stories for the Catholic child (and adult), designed to captivatingly teach the truths and morals of the faith. This is the companion volume to "Just Stories" by the same author.

Twenty-four short stories by famous and not-so-famous British authors.

Kazan (sometimes published with the subtitle The Wolf Dog) is a once very popular novel by environmentalist and author James Oliver Curwood. After a trip to the Yukon area of Canada and Alaska, Curwood wrote a series of wilderness adventure novels that were best-sellers in the 1910’s and 1920’s and remained popular through mid century. Jack London had begun the vogue for northland dog stories with his Call of the Wild and White Fang, and there were many imitators, but none had a greater impact than Curwood...

"Mosses from an Old Manse" is a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846. The collection includes several previously-published short stories and is named in honor of The Old Manse where Hawthorne and his wife lived for the first three years of their marriage. A second edition was published in 1854, which added "Feathertop," "Passages from a Relinquished Work, and "Sketches from Memory."Many of the tales collected in "Mosses from an Old Manse" are allegories and, typical of Hawthorne, focus on the negative side of human nature...

Enid Yandell (October 6, 1870 - June 13, 1934) was an American sculptor who studied with Auguste Rodin and Frederick William MacMonnies. She created numerous portraits, garden pieces and small works as well as public monuments. Ms. Yandell also studied in Paris and kept a studio there. This book, Three Girls in a Flat, is a semi-autobiographical account of her work as a sculptor for the Horticultural Building at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Co-written with two friends, it's an episodic account of the trials and tribulations of three young women eking out a living while sharing a small flat in Chicago...

'Peter Kropotkin was a Russian anarcho-communist and scientist. This is his autobiography, and he writes not only about his own life, but also about 19th century Russian society and politics. He was born into the nobility and had a military education, but he gradually abandoned the values of his social class and became an anti-authoritarian socialist, opposed to both the rule of the Tsars and to the seizing of power by the authoritarian Bolsheviks. He was also interested in literature, biology, economics and geographical exploration. This first volume of his memoirs covers his childhood, his education, and the time he spent in Siberia. '. (Introduction by Elin, )

Elisha Gray was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois and is considered by some writers to be the true inventor of the variable resistance telephone, despite losing out to Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone patent.Nature’s Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science, published in 1900, is a discussion of science and technology for the general public. Volume II is subtitled Energy and Vibration: Energy, Sound, Heat, Light, Explosives.

Meno (Ancient Greek: Μένων) is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. Written in the Socratic dialectic style, it attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning in this case virtue in general, rather than particular virtues, such as justice or temperance. The goal is a common definition that applies equally to all particular virtues. Socrates moves the discussion past the philosophical confusion, or aporia, created by Meno's paradox (aka the learner's paradox) with the introduction of new Platonic ideas: the theory of knowledge as recollection, anamnesis, and in the final lines a movement towards Platonic idealism.. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop of Geneva from 1602, was a renowned spiritual director who produced two classic guidebooks for earthly wayfarers on their spiritual journey to God: Introduction a la vie devote (Introduction to the Devout Life, 1609) and Traite' de l'amour de Dieu (Treatise on the Love of God, or Of the Love of God, 1616). In the Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis shows how anyone, whatever his or her calling or station in life, can strive for and achieve a life a piety and devotion to God...

The room was all full of twilight; but there they sat, every one of them. I did not count them, but there were ever so many: Aladdin, and Ali Baba, and Fortunatis, and Jack-the-Giant-Killer, and Doctor Faustus, and Bidpai, and Cinderella, and Patient Grizzle, and the Soldier who cheated the Devil, and St. George, and Hans in Luck, who traded and traded his lump of gold until he had only an empty churn to show for it; and there was Sindbad the Sailor, and the Tailor who killed seven flies at a blow,...

Cowperwood moves to Chicago with his new wife Aileen. He decides to take over the street-railway system. He bankrupts several opponents with the help of John J. McKenty and other political allies. Meanwhile, Chicago society finds out about his past in Philadelphia and the couple are no longer invited to dinner parties; after a while, the press turns on him too. Cowperwood is unfaithful many times. Aileen finds out about a certain Rita and beats her up. She gives up on him and has an affair with Polk Lynde, a man of privilege; she eventually loses faith in him...

In this book, his most famous, Max Stirner presents a philosophical case for a radical egoism that shuns the socially-oriented outlooks of both "establishment" ideologies and of revolutionaries in favor of an extreme individualism. The book is most widely talked about today only through the lens of other philosophers' thought: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels launched a famous assault on it in The German Ideology, and some draw a connection between Stirner's thoughts here and Nietzsche's egoism a generation later. But it is worth reading in its own right, as much for its lyricism as the challenge of its philosophical proposals.

St. Chrysostom’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians is continuous, according to chapter and verse, instead of being arranged in Homilies, with a moral or practical application at their close, as in his exposition of other Epistles. It was written in Antioch, as Montfaucon infers from a reference which the Author, makes upon Chap. i., ver. 16 to other of his writings, which certainly were written about the same time in that city. (Introduction from the preface by John Henry Newman)

The Legends of Genesis is the English translation of the introduction to Gunkel’s massive commentary, Genesis. Gunkel uses form critical analysis on the text of Genesis to determine the various genres of the biblical legends and their significance to the authors. Gunkel also uses form criticism to uncover buried clues as to the constituent sources of the text. Gunkel offers his hypothesis to explain how the various sources came to be combined and redacted, and how the text later came to be attributed to Moses.

Venus and Adonis is Shakespeare's narrative poem about the love of the goddess Venus for the mortal youth Adonis, dedicated partly to his patron, the Earl of Southampton (thought by some to be the beautiful youth to which many of the Sonnets are addressed). The poem recounts Venus' attempts to woo Adonis, their passionate coupling, and Adonis' rejection of the goddess, to which she responds with jealousy, with tragic results. This recording features three different readers performing the narration, Venus, and Adonis.

This collection of eight one-act dramas features plays by Eugene O'Neill, George Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy, Susan Glaspell, William Dean Howells and John Millington Synge. It also includes a dramatic reading of a short story by Frank Richard Stockton.

A gentle, yet deliciously humourous series of anecdotes following the life of the main character and his wife, Eliza.

This romantic mystery - or mysterious romance - tells the tale of jilted lover, Jim Conrad, who discovers an unusual gold ring while on a visit to Paris. What is the story of the ring? Why is Clelia Vine so sad? Who is the nameless 'chief'? And how is a dour English barber in a Parisian salon mixed up in all this?The novel, published in 1896, was written by Justin McCarthy, an Irish nationalist, Liberal historian, novelist and politician. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)

The Grand Inquisitor is a parable told by Ivan to Alyosha in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). Ivan and Alyosha are brothers; Ivan questions the possibility of a personal, benevolent God and Alyosha is a novice monk. The Grand Inquisitor is an important part of the novel and one of the best-known passages in modern literature because of its ideas about human nature and freedom, and because of its fundamental ambiguity. In the tale, Christ comes back to earth in Seville at the time of the Inquisition...

37 short pieces perfect for newer recorders. These one page Stories of (mostly) Wonderful Deeds were written for Little Folk to teach them about famous incidents in their history. Bonnie Prince Charlie, Nelson and Hardy, Bruce and the Spider, David Livingston, Canute, Sir Philip Sydney, and Elizabeth and Raleigh are just some of the well known people and incidents covered in short stories.

This is a collection of 12 short stories of mystery and humor, which are, as the title says, for amusement only.

This is a children's version of Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels, from the Told to the Children Series (published in 1910). The children's adventure story covers Gulliver's visits to the lands of Lilliput and Brobdingnag.

MANUAL OF SURGERY, OXFORD MEDICAL PUBLICATIONSBY ALEXIS THOMSON, F.R.C.S.Ed.PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION Much has happened since this Manual was last revised, and many surgical lessons have been learned in the hard school of war. Some may yet have to be unlearned, and others have but little bearing on the problems presented to the civilian surgeon. Save in its broadest principles, the surgery of warfare is a thing apart from the general surgery of civil life, and the exhaustive literature now available on every aspect of it makes it unnecessary that it should receive detailed consideration in a manual for students...

During a burglary at the home of Deputy Daubrecq a crime is committed, and two accomplices of Arsène Lupin are arrested by the police. One is guilty of the crime, the other innocent, but both will be sentenced to death. Lupin seeks to deliver the victim of a miscarriage of justice, but struggles against Deputy Daubrecq's ruthless blackmailer, who has an incriminating document hidden in a crystal stopper.

The Sunny Side is a collection of short stories and essays by A. A. Milne. Though Milne is best known for his classic children's books, especially Winnie The Pooh, he also wrote extensively for adults, most notably in Punch, to which he was a contributor and later Assistant Editor. The Sunny Side collects his columns for Punch, which include poems, essays and short stories, from 1912 to 1920. Wry, often satirical and always amusingly written, these pieces poke fun at topics from writing plays to lying about birdwatching. They vary greatly in length so there is something for everyone.

These light entertainments, originally published anonymously, are an imagined day in the life of each composer (Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Chopin, Wagner, Gounod, Mozart, Schumann, Tschaikovsky). This gives the author scope to describe each one's work and life, sketchily, of course, but interestingly.

Taking issue with Hegel’s sense that God, as Logos, is somehow central to all that is, Feuerbach explores his own notion that Christianity, as religion, grew quite naturally from ordinary human observation. Only upon deeper, systematic reflection did people postulate a divine source–God. Religious teaching which loses sight of its own essential rootedness in human experience runs the risk becoming overly abstract, disconnected even, from realities which shape humanity and which impart meaning and dignity to life...

Omega: The Last Days of the World is a science fiction novel by astronomer Camille Flammarion. On 25th century Earth, a comet is on a path to collide with the Earth ending it all. Astronomers predict different scenarios as to how they will all die depending on the chemical composition of the comet. Omega probes the philosophical and political consequences that arise as the human race faces the end of the world.

On the Bondage of the Will (Latin: 'De Servo Arbitrio', literally, "On Un-free Will", or "Concerning Bound Choice"), by Martin Luther, was published in December 1525. It was his reply to Desiderius Erasmus's De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio or On Free Will, which had appeared in September 1524 as Erasmus's first public attack on Luther, after being wary about the methods of the reformer for many years. At issue was whether human beings, after the Fall of Man, are free to choose good or evil. The debate between Luther and Erasmus is one of the earliest of the Reformation over the issue of free will and predestination.

Pierre Loti [Julien Viaud] (1850-1923) was a French naval officer and novelist. The present book is one of his few works of non-fiction, a small collection of letters and diary entries that describe his views and experiences in the wars and military operations in which he participated. Besides World War I, he also sheds light upon his views and involvement in the preparations for the Turkish Revolution of 1923, for which until today a famous hill and popular café in Istanbul are named after him.

Old Times on the Mississippi is a non-fiction work by Mark Twain. It was published in 1876. Originally published in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly, in 1875, this same work was published as chapters 4 through 17 in Twain's later work, Life on the Mississippi (1883). Old Times on the the Mississippi has one last chapter that has nothing to do with the rest of the book. A Literary Nightmare describes the funny/sad/maddening effect that a catchy jingle can have on those unlucky enough to be captured by one.