Autobiography, written by David Crockett about 2 years before his death at the Alamo in March of 1836. - Summary by Bill2147

A Glimpse of India: being a collection of extracts from the letters Dr. Clara A. Swain, first medical missionary to India of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. - Summary from the book's introduction

Plutarch's Lives is a series of fifty biographies of famous Greek and Roman men written around 100 AD. In Our Young Folks' Plutarch, Rosalie Kaufman has adapted these biographies for young readers. In the preface she writes, “The lives which we here present in a condensed simple form are prepared from those of Plutarch. Plutarch says, ‘It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories, but lives.’ This is why anecdotes, short sayings or a word or two of repartee are frequently recorded...

Ibn Battuta , was a Moroccan explorer. Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands. His journeys included trips to North Africa, West Africa, the Horn of Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China. Battuta is generally considered one of the greatest travellers of all time. This is a journal/record of his travels, omitting the translator's note and preface. NOTE: The material contains racial terms and ideas that are objectionable today. The final section speaks of cannibalism with the natives as the victims, for example.

When Henry Stanley was in Africa , he met a king named Mutesa. This king had started believing his tribe's Ugandan traditions about spirits and devils. Then some Arabs came through and Mutesa converted to Islam. When Mr. Stanley came and told Mutesa about God, Mutesa became a Christian and asked Mr. Stanley to get the English to send back missionaries so he and his tribe could learn more about God. Alexander Mackay was one of those courageous men who answered the call.

This is a collection of broadsides from London. Broadsides are short, popular publications, a precursor to today's tabloid journalism. The collection contains sensationalist and sometimes comical stories about criminal conduct, love, the Royal Family, politics, as well as gallows' literature. Gallow's literature were often sold at the execution. As a collection these broadsides are a reminder of how important the printer was at this time -- it is surely no coincidence that the printers are printed at the end of every broadside, while the authors remain anonymous. - Summary by kathrinee

This Book is about the Men Who Found America and how it started - Summary by Elijah

Constantine Panunzio begins his autobiography by describing his childhood in Molfetta, Italy. At age 13, he left home as a sailor, landing in Boston in 1902. His trials finding work, learning English, and securing an education in the U.S. were many, but eventually, he became administrator of a social service agency in Boston. During WWI, he served as head of the YMCA on the Italian front. Concerned throughout his career with the treatment and assimilation of immigrants, Panuncio criticized the post world War I hysteria about alien radicals in his book The Deportation Cases of 1919-1920. - Summary by Sue Anderson

This recording contains two early biographies of Dante, both written by notable Florentine literati. Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian poet, most famous for his monumental collection of tales, The Decameron. Like Dante, Boccacio was one of the first writers to use the Italian vernacular. Lionardo Bruni was an accredited historian and man of letters. His short biography was inspired by reading the version of Dante's life by Boccaccio, who he considered had mispresented Dante by over-emphasizing the influence of his association with Beatrice...

R. G. "Dick" Barlow was one of the most accomplished all-round cricketers of the late 19th Century. For many years he opened the batting with A. N. Hornby for Lancashire and England, often acting as a "stonewaller" who "carried his bat through the innings" while his teammates hit out for runs. He also excelled with the ball and delights in telling his readers how he dismissed his contemporary W. G. Grace more often than most. Barlow's 40 years in club, county, and test cricket are recounted with an attention to detail befitting a first class cricketer and umpire...

A history of Florence Nightingale , the founder of modern nursing. Here's the definitive biography, gleaned from a lifetime of her notes, letters and writings, that goes way beyond the mere legend of "The Lady With The Lamp", and the "Founder Of Modern Nursing". This well written saga covers the vastly more expanded story of her development into an intelligent woman with a high purpose, her social standing and family connections that opened many doors for her, her extensive work after the Crimean War working with governments to develop better health care delivery systems to the indigent in England and in India, and her voluminous writings on numerous topics...

In this second volume, Hodges uses stories of the lives of fourteen well-known saints and heroes of the faith to continue the history of the church from the end of the Reformation through the 1700s. These stories recount their lives and sacrifices for the faith. These saints and heroes include: Luther, More, Loyola, Cranmer, Calvin, Knox, Coligny, William the Silent, Brewster, Laud, Cromwell, Bunyan, Fox, and Wesley. Appropriate and beneficial for children and adults! - Summary by Maggie Travers

A fast-paced, somewhat racey look into the life, accomplishments and idiosyncrasies of Benjamin Franklin. Acclaimed biographer Paul L. Ford uses Franklin’s letters, papers and journals to step us through Franklin's many adventures, to reveal intimate details of his personal life - relations with siblings, wife, children, friends, business partners; his physique, health, illnesses, schooling, personal habits and goals; his opinions on education, philosophy, religion, friendship, industry; his library; his career as printer and publisher, writer and journalist, politician and diplomat, scientist, humorist, jack of all trades; and his relations at home and abroad with the “fairer sex“...

"It has long been a desideratum to have in English the early narratives, of the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi. Marquette's map and voyage have indeed appeared, but the narrative varies in no small degree from the authentic manuscript, and the map is not at all a copy of that still preserved, as it came from the hand of the great explorer. These published from original manuscripts, and accompanied by the narratives of the missionaries in La Salle's expedition, are now first presented in an accessible shape, and complete the annals of the exploration...

Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving lives contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman, as well as four unpaired, single lives. Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, as such, but in exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. The first pair of lives the Epaminondas-Scipio Africanus no longer exists, and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers...

Abraham Lincoln: A History is an 1890 ten-volume account of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, written by John Nicolay and John Hay, who were his personal secretaries during the American Civil War. Volume 3 chronicles Lincoln's life from his election in 1860 through April, 1861.

Harriet Beecher Stowe , of Cincinnati, was the most famous female American author of her age, and is said to have touched off the American Civil War with her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin , awakening the whole world to the harsh conditions of slavery. She wrote 30 other successful books depicting life in early America, plus collections of well written articles and travellogues, poems, hymns, and speeches on social issues. Harriet's father and all 7 of her brothers were ministers, her 5 sisters teachers and/or social activists, a whole family concerned with improving society...

William Shakespeare: actor, poet, playwright. He is often called England's greatest writer, the Bard of Avon, a national treasure. But who was he? An average boy, born to an average family of the period; a romantic and dreamer, tempted away from his rural home by the sights and sounds of the big city. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, here is one of the many studies of the bard's life and works.

Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu , the dreaded red eminence, mentor and manager of Louis XIII, skilled in logistics, he subdued in battle the unruly Huguenot aristocracy, successfully resisted France's encirclement by the Hapsburg Empire, and laid the foundation for the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. - Summary by Pamela Nagami

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, liberal prime minister , wrote this short biography of William Pitt, the Younger , the controversial young prime minister who led Great Britain during the terrible trial of the Napoleonic Wars. Lord Rosebery writes: "From the dead eighteenth century his figure still faces us with a majesty of loneliness and courage. There may have been men both abler and greater than he, though it is not easy to cite them; but in all history there is no more patriotic spirit, none more intrepid, and none more pure."

"Relates the story of Raleigh from his boyhood days on the coast of Devonshire, to his exploits in Ireland and his unexpected entry into the court of Queen Elizabeth. We travel with him as he pursues the ships of the Spanish Armada and makes voyages to the New World in search of gold and lands to settle. We see his efforts come to naught and hear how he is relegated to the Tower of London where he spends the last years of his life. Includes the fabled story of the velvet cloak and the role Raleigh played in introducing potatoes and tobacco to the Old World...

By the time of his death in 1740, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, had done everything possible to secure the succession to the throne of his daughter, Maria Theresa, but practically nothing to train her how to rule. Nevertheless, Maria Theresa managed by common sense, charm, and expert advice to negotiate a forty-year reign marked by secret diplomacy, shifting alliances, relentless warfare, and ruthless realpolitik. This short biography by the Oxford historian, James Franck Bright, describes her first thirty years on the throne.

Abraham Lincoln: A History is an 1890 ten-volume account of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, written by John Nicolay and John Hay, who were his personal secretaries during the American Civil War. Volume 4 chronicles Lincoln's life from April to November 1861.

Charlemagne c. 742-814 was King of the Franks, conqueror of Lombard Italy, and on Christmas day 800, was crowned by Pope Leo III as the first Holy Roman Emperor. The author tells us that he "was a man of commanding presence, more than six feet high, with large and lustrous eyes, a rather long nose, a bright and cheerful countenance, and a fine head of hair." Charles was a just ruler, a lover of learning and of women . He was a strong supporter of the Church and of the Pope, whose divisive territorial rule in Italy he helped to establish...

Aliases. Fraudsters. Confidence tricksters. People pretending to be what they are not, for financial, political or personal gain. Fiction is filled with them to entertain us; but would not be anywhere near as believable if such people had not, in reality, existed since time immemorial. In this work, the famous Bram Stoker throws light on just a few such people, who have tricked their way into the annals of history. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

A biography of the famous and popular poet-naturalist, author, philosopher, historian, written by a family friend who spent time with Thoreau almost daily during the last seven years of his life and who knew and talked with members of his family. Written shortly after his death, it was immediately popular and this later edition gained a new audience.

This collection of the 258 known, publicly-printed interviews of Mark Twain was compiled by Gary Scharnhorst and published by the University of Alabama Press. The interviews are in the Public Domain, and our thanks go to Gary Scharnhorst and the University of Alabama for making them available for this Public Domain audio recording. They were compiled in the University of Alabama Press book entitled "Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews" and are arranged, chronologically, from Twain's first authenticated interview in 1871, to his last interview in 1910...

Full titled History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni, this small journal was a travel narrative kept by the English Romantic authors Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. They describe two trips, both taken by Mary, Percy, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont: one across Europe in 1814, and one to Lake Geneva in 1816. Divided into three sections, the text consists of a journal, four letters, and Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc". Apart from the poem, the text was primarily written and organized by Mary Shelley. - Summary by 1817

Philip Augustus , grandfather of Saint Louis, was one of France's greatest kings. While England's Henry II was locked in combat with his rebellious offspring, Philip and his loyal son, Louis, steadily consolidated the scattered territories of their little kingdom. In this short, but vivid history we meet King Philip, now riding, at the behest of the imperious Pope Innocent III, with his spurned wife, Ingeborgis, behind him on the saddle, now impetuously flying at his enemies at the Battle of Bouvines...

A collection of sparkling gossipy biographical pieces of Aubrey's contemporaries, including Bacon, Jonson and Shakespeare, Brief Lives' glimpses into the unofficial side of these towering figures has won it an undying popularity, with Ruth Scurr's recent reimagined "autobiography" of Aubrey, breathing new life into this classic for the next generation of readers. - Summary by Nicole Lee

Grant Allen was an anthropologist, scientific writer, novelist and poet, though the biographer and writer Frank Harris has said of him that "He could be described with more 'ists' than anyone else I ever saw. He was an atheist and pacifist and socialist, a botanist and zoologist and optimist, a chemist and physicist, a scientist of scientists, a monist, meliorist and hedonist…". As a novelist, he is noted as a pioneer in both the detective and science fiction genres. He was born in Canada but spent the latter part of his life in England...

The Lives of the Queens of England is a multi-volumed work attributed to Agnes Strickland, though it was mostly researched and written by her sister Elisabeth. These volumes give biographies of the queens of England from the Norman Conquest in 1066. Although by today's standards, it is not seen as a very scholarly work, the Stricklands used many sources that had not been used before.Volume seven includes the biography of Elizabeth I, from 1587 to her death in 1603, and Anne of Denmark.