Classic Books

“The subject of imposture is always an interesting one, and impostors in one shape or another are likely to flourish as long as human nature remains what it is, and society shows itself ready to be gulled. The histories of famous cases of imposture in this book have been grouped together to show that the art has been practised in many forms—impersonators, pretenders, swindlers, and humbugs of all kinds; those who have masqueraded in order to acquire wealth, position, or fame, and those who have done so merely for the love of the art. So numerous are instances, indeed, that the book cannot profess to exhaust a theme which might easily fill a dozen volumes; its purpose is simply to collect and record a number of the best known instances.” -Preface

Napoleon said, “My maxim has always been, a career open to talent without distinction of birth.” It will be seen in these pages that most of these men rose to leadership by their own efforts. Napoleon was poor, and often without employment in early life, but his industry, good judgment, will, and ambition carried him to the heights of power.

First published in the year 1889 by Thomas Y. Crowell & Company Publishers, ‘Famous Men of Science’ comprises of sketches of some of the greatest scientists written by Sarah Knowles Bolton.

The group of stories brought together in this volume differ from legends because they have, with one exception, no core of fact at the centre, from myths because they make no attempt to personify or explain the forces or processes of nature, from fairy stories because they do not often bring on to the stage actors of a different nature from ours. They give full play to the fancy as in “A Child’s Dream of a Star,” “The King of the Golden River,” “Undine,” and “The Snow Image”; but they are not poetic records of the facts of life, attempts to shape those facts “to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart.” In the Introduction to the book of Fairy Tales in this series, those familiar and much loved stories which have been repeated to children for unnumbered generations and will be repeated to the end of time, are described as “records of the free and joyful play of the imagination, opening doors through hard conditions to the spirit, which craves power, freedom, happiness; righting wrongs, and redressing injuries; defeating base designs; rewarding patience and virtue; crowning true love with happiness; placing the powers of darkness under the control of man and making their ministers his servants.” The stories which make up this volume are closer to experience and come, for the most part, nearer to the every-day happenings of life.

“The present book is a continuation from “Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious.” The generality of readers had better just leave it alone. The generality of critics likewise. I really don’t want to convince anybody. It is quite in opposition to my whole nature. I don’t intend my books for the generality of readers. I count it a mistake of our mistaken democracy, that every man who can read print is allowed to believe that he can read all that is printed. I count it a misfortune that serious books are exposed in the public market, like slaves exposed naked for sale. But there we are, since we live in an age of mistaken democracy, we must go through with it.” -Preface

A Moral Principle met a Material Interest on a bridge wide enough for but one.
“Down, you base thing!” thundered the Moral Principle, “and let me pass over you!”
The Material Interest merely looked in the other’s eyes without saying anything.
“Ah,” said the Moral Principle, hesitatingly, “let us draw lots to see which shall retire till the other has crossed.”
The Material Interest maintained an unbroken silence and an unwavering stare.
“In order to avoid a conflict,” the Moral Principle resumed, somewhat uneasily, “I shall myself lie down and let you walk over me.”

Marvelous as have been the achievements in other fields of human activity, the greatest forward strides in the United States have been made in agriculture. Particularly was this true during the last half century.

 A masterful study of a father whose sacrifices for his daughters have become a compulsion, this novel marks Balzac’s ‘real entrée’ into La Comédie Humaine, his series of almost one hundred novels and short stories meant to depict “the whole pell-mell of civilization. 

It is twenty years since I first determined to attempt the translation of Faust, in the original metres. At that time, although more than a score of English translations of the First Part, and three or four of the Second Part, were in existence, the experiment had not yet been made. The prose version of Hayward seemed to have been accepted as the standard, in default of anything more satisfactory: the English critics, generally sustaining the translator in his views concerning the secondary importance of form in Poetry, practically discouraged any further attempt; and no one, familiar with rhythmical expression through the needs of his own nature, had devoted the necessary love and patience to an adequate reproduction of the great work of Goethe’s life.

“The history of this little sparkle from the pen of Lewis Carroll may soon be told. It was in October of the year 1884 that he came on a visit to a certain vicarage in Derbyshire, where he had promised, on the score of friendship, to do what was for him a most unusual favour—to give a lecture before a public audience. The writer well remembers his nervous, highly-strung manner as he stood before the little room full of simple people, few of whom had any idea of the world-wide reputation of that shy, slight figure before them. When the lecture was over, he handed the manuscript to me, saying: ‘Do what you like with it.’ The one for whose sake he did this kindness was not long after called ‘Into the Silent Land.’” -Preface by William H. Draper, November 1907

This book is concerned with the art of realizing your desire. It gives you an account of the mechanism used in the production of the visible world. It is a small book but not slight. There is a treasure in it, a clearly defined road to the realization of your dreams.

Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases is a practical handbook of pertinent expressions, striking similes, literary, commercial, conversational, and oratorical terms, for the embellishment of speech and literature, and the improvement of the vocabulary of those persons who read, write, and speak English. In this book, Grenville Kleiser furnishes an additional and an exceptional aid for those who would have a mint of phrases at their command from which to draw when in need of the golden mean for expressing thought

Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with sordid adventurers, passed the poet by.

And still the poet made for her little chaplets of song, to deck her forehead in the courts of Time: and still she wore instead the worthless garlands, that boisterous citizens flung to her in the ways, made out of perishable things.

And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet came to her with his chaplets of song; and still she laughed at him and wore the worthless wreaths, though they always died at evening.

First published in the year 1919, the present book ‘Fifty-Two Stories For Girls’ is a collection of 52 short stories written for young girls, purposefully, by the famous English author, editor and composer Alfred H. Miles.

This Cook Book is especially designed to meet just that pressing daily need of the housewife. It presents for her guidance a menu for every Sunday dinner in the year; it suggests dishes which are seasonable as well as practical; it tells in a simple, intelligent manner just how these dishes can be made in the most wholesome and economical form; and the recipes have all been especially made for this book and tested by that eminent expert, Mrs. Elizabeth O. Hiller.

The title of “52 Sunday Dinners” has been given the book because Sunday dinners as a rule are a little more elaborate than the other dinners of the week, but from these menus may be gleaned helpful hints for daily use.

Finding the Lost Treasure is a detective fiction novel written by Helen M. Persons, an adventure and mystery novelist and the author of “The Mystery of Arnold Hall”.
Excerpts from the first chapter. The lives of the children had been simple, happy ones, until the recent death of their father and mother, hardly three months apart. John Wistmore, in whose veins flowed the blood of men of culture and ambition, had been anxious to give his children greater educational advantages than Sissiboo afforded. Jack, therefore, had been sent to Wolfville to school, and was now ready for college; while Desiré was looking forward to high school in the autumn

Dearest Mother and Dad:—
As you have probably seen by the papers, we all are in the midst of alarms. We have had less than a week’s notice to get ready for mobilization for service in France, and so it has been a rushing week. Last Saturday afternoon we received word we were likely to be called out soon—in two or three weeks—but on Tuesday night I received word to have the nurses ready by Saturday. It is now Friday evening and most of the nurses are ready, but it is quite certain we won’t be leaving for several days as the doctors’ uniforms, for instance, won’t be ready till next Wednesday. I am glad indeed for the extra time. The nurses can take a very small steamer trunk and a suitcase. As we apparently are to be sent abroad “for the duration of the war” it is rather a puzzle to know what to take.

An 1896 book, ‘Fire and Sword in the Sudan: A personal Narrative of Fighting and Serving the Dervishes’ was written by Freiherr von Rudolf Carl Slatin, who was a Colonel in the Egyptian army at that time.

This book is intended for children. There is no subject in the presentation of which object-teaching may be employed with greater facility and profit than in teaching Physiology, and none which may be more advantageously impressed upon the student’s mind by means of simple experimentation than the subject of Hygiene. Every teacher who uses this book is urgently requested to supplement each lesson by the use of object-teaching or experiments. A great number of simple experiments illustrative of both Physiology and Hygiene may be readily arranged. Many little experiments are suggested in the text, which should invariably be made before the class, each member of which should also be encouraged to repeat them at home.

“If a fit and proper person volunteer to travel in the Somali Country, he goes as a private traveller, the Government giving no more protection to him than they would to an individual totally unconnected with the service. They will allow the officer who obtains permission to go, during his absence on the expedition to retain all the pay and allowances he may be enjoying when leave was granted: they will supply him with all the instruments required, afford him a passage going and returning, and pay the actual expenses of the journey.”

First published in the year 1881, ‘First Lessons in Natural Philosophy’ is an essential reading for those who are serious and curious about learning philosophy. Joseph C. Martindale’s engaging and simple writing style makes it even better for the beginners.

This book is offered to the public, not to be classed with elaborate or learned works, nor expected, like some of its more pretending companions among the offspring of the press, to run the gauntlet of literary criticism. It was prepared to meet the wants of persons—numbered by multitudes in even the most intelligent and refined communities—who from deficiency of education, or from carelessness of manner, are in the habit of misusing many of the most common words of the English language, distorting its grammatical forms, destroying its beauty, and corrupting its purity.

The following lectures were written primarily to be delivered at the summer sessions of the University of California, at Berkeley and at Los Angeles, in the summer of 1918. We are printing them, however, so that the information in them can be more widely distributed, since they are the outgrowth of almost a quarter of a century spent in work for the blind, and were written from the standpoint of a blind person, seeking to better the condition of the blind. They were addressed not to the blind, but to the seeing public, for the benefit that will accrue to the blind from a better understanding of their problems.

There are about 103 stories and short poems in this volume, written for children

First published in the year 1863, celebrated classic English novelist Jules Verne’s novel ‘Five Weeks in a Balloon’ is an adventure novel. The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known to Europeans of the time, with explorers traveling all over the continent in search of its secrets.

The present book ‘Flappers and Philosophers’ by one of the most celebrated English novelist F Scott Fitzgerald is a collection of short stories. It was his first collection of stories, and included eight short stories. It was first published in the year 1920.