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Famous British writer Arnold Bennett’s novel ‘A Man from the North’ was first published in the year 1911. “There grows in the North Country a certain kind of youth of whom it may be said that he is born to be a Londoner. The metropolis, and everything that appertains to it, that comes down from it, that goes up into it, has for him an imperious fascination. Long before schooldays are over he learns to take a doleful pleasure in watching the exit of the London train from the railway station.” -an excerpt

First of a Series of Six Stories, When a seed-merchant of cautious disposition and an eye to the main chance receives from an eminent firm of jam-manufacturers an extremely large order for clover-seed, his emotions are mixed. Joy may be said to predominate, but with the joy comes also uncertainty. Are these people, he asks himself, proposing to set up as farmers of a large scale, or do they merely want the seed to give verisimilitude to their otherwise bald and unconvincing raspberry jam? On the solution of this problem depends the important matter of price, for, obviously, you can charge a fraudulent jam disseminator in a manner which an honest farmer would resent.

This Bird Study Manual is intended especially for the use of teachers and pupils in the New York City Schools. It is written primarily to describe the birds contained in the circulating nature study collections which the American Museum of Natural History loans to public schools. However it may be used as a general guide to bird study as well. The various study outlines tell the story of different projects that may be developed in connection with birds. Typical birds are illustrated. As much as is possible in the life history of each bird is given. The bird poems may be used in connection with the study of English. The study of birds may very well be correlated with the studies of many other subjects such as Civics, Geography and other topics.

Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang’d love-tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy

“Filth,” grunted Trent—“ugh! I tell you what it is, my venerable friend—I have seen some dirty cabins in the west of Ireland and some vile holes in East London. I’ve been in some places which I can’t think of even now without feeling sick. I’m not a particular chap, wasn’t brought up to it—no, nor squeamish either, but this is a bit thicker than anything I’ve ever knocked up against. If Francis doesn’t hurry we’ll have to chuck it! We shall never stand it out, Monty!”

The older man, gaunt, blear-eyed, ragged, turned over on his side. His appearance was little short of repulsive. His voice when he spoke was, curiously enough, the voice of a gentleman, thick and a trifle rough though it sounded.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers.

A Modest Proposal’ is a 1729 Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift. Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocked heartless attitudes towards the poor as well as British policy toward the Irish in general.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

“The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The editor’s defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like other writers of English. He is certainly one of the very greatest. Yet nowadays he is generally unknown. His rollicking frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account for the neglect. Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its eyes in horror when “Tristram Shandy” appeared. “A most unclerical clergyman,” the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and prebendary of York.” -Introduction by Laurence Sterne

First published in the year 1912, the present book titled ‘A Personal Record’ was written by one of the famous British, colonial fiction writer Joseph Conrad. This book is his autobiographical work.

A young girl, brown-haired, blue-eyed, with a sweet seriousness that was neither joy nor sorrow upon her fair pale face, leaned against the mast on the Mayflower’s deck watching the bustle of the final preparations for setting sail westward. A boy somewhat older than she stood beside her whittling an arrow from a bit of beechwood, whistling through his teeth, his tongue pressed against them, a livelier air than a pilgrim boy from Leyden was supposed to know, and sullenly scorning to betray interest in the excitement ashore and aboard. A little girl clung to the pretty young girl’s skirt; the unlikeness between them, though they were sisters, was explained by their being but half sisters.

Twenty-four years earlier, in South Africa, where he was then living, his satyagraha had forced the government to repeal the law forcing Indians in the Transvaal to register themselves and carry certificates bearing their finger prints to prove that they had the right to live in that country.
In India, he was applying the same tactics of defying the authority of the alien British Government in a peaceful, non-violent way and refusing to co-operate with it.
The British had come to India 330 years earlier, landing at the port of Surat, hardly 50 Kilometers from Dandi, where Gandhiji and his followers stood on April 5, 1930, ready to begin the struggle against them.

First published in the year 1759, the present novel ‘A Political Romance’ by famous novelist Laurence Sterne can be considered a mock-epic allegory that describes a provincial squabble between a church-lawyer, an archbishop and a Dean, i.e. a “Lilliputian” satire on ecclesiastical politics in Sterne’s York. (courtesy: wikipedia)

“Ingred! Ingred, old girl! I say, Ingred! Wherever have you taken yourself off to?” shouted a boyish voice, as its owner, jumping an obstructing gooseberry bush, tore around the corner of the house from the kitchen garden on to the strip of rough lawn that faced the windows. “Hullo! Cuckoo! Coo-ee! In-gred!”

First published in the year 1916 at the turn of the 20th century and a laid foundation of modern novel in Europe, James Joyce’s first novel ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe.

DescriptionA curious, unusual, puzzling type of book. The story of the awakening of a London financier who, after long years spent in the amassing of a fortune, reverts to his early dream of becoming a great philanthropist

Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre.

Take the Plums, and cut the stalk off, and wipe them then take the just weight of them in Sugar, then put them in a skillet of water, and let them stand in and scald, being close covered till they be tender, they must not seeth, when they be soft lay them in a Dish, and cover them with a cloth, and stew some of the the Sugar in the glass bottom, and put in the Plums, strewing the sugar over till all be in, then let them stand all night, the next day put them in a pan, and let them boil a pace, keeping them clean scummed, & when your Plums look clear, your syrup will gelly, and they are enough. If your Plums be ripe, peel off the skins before you put them in the glass; they will be the better and clearer a great deal to dry, if you will take the Plums white; if green, do them with the rinds on.

E. M. Forster’s 1908 novel ‘A Room with A View’ narrates the story of a young woman in the restrained culture of Edwardian England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century.

“A Scandal in Bohemia” is the first short story, and the third overall work, featuring Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

It has long been the custom to begin the history of our country with the discovery of the New World by Columbus. To some extent this is both wise and necessary; but in following it in this instance the attempt has been made to treat the colonial period as the childhood of the United States; to have it bear the same relation to our later career that the account of the youth of a great man should bear to that of his maturer years, and to confine it to the narration of such events as are really necessary to a correct understanding of what has happened since 1776.

The series of lessons designed to enlighten regarding the nature of the real self, and to instruct in the secret knowledge the consciousness and realization of the real self.

William Walker Atkinson was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and author, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of the New Thought movement.

“The six stories in this volume are the result of some three or four years of occasional work. The dates of their writing are far apart, their origins are various. None of them are connected directly with personal experiences. In all of them the facts are inherently true, by which I mean that they are not only possible but that they have actually happened.” -Author’s Note

The primary aim of this book is to give as much information about English authors, including under this designation American and Colonial writers, as the prescribed limits will admit of. At the same time an attempt has been made, where materials exist for it, to enhance the interest by introducing such details as tend to illustrate the characters and circumstances of the respective writers and the manner in which they passed through the world; and in the case of the more important, to give some indication of the relative place which they hold and the leading features of their work.

For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the butter and remained faithful to her mistress–although the latter was by no means an agreeable person. Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who died in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children and a number of debts. She sold all her property excepting the farm of Toucques and the farm of Geffosses, the income of which barely amounted to 5,000 francs; then she left her house.

“A Simple Heart”, also called Un coeur simple or Le perroquet in French, is a story .

A book that gives a wanderer’s descriptions of his exploration of the tribes and scenery beauty of the forests and people of Assam. The main objective of this book is to make Assam better known, to remove some prejudices which exist against it, and preserve the memory of many remarkable scenes.

Give me your hand, gentle reader, and come along with me. It is glorious weather; there is a tender blue in the May sky; the smooth young leaves of the willows glisten as though they had been polished; the wide even road is all covered with that delicate grass with the little reddish stalk that the sheep are so fond of nibbling; to right and to left, over the long sloping hillsides, the green rye is softly waving; the shadows of small clouds glide in thin long streaks over it. In the distance is the dark mass of forests, the glitter of ponds, yellow patches of village; larks in hundreds are soaring, singing, falling headlong with outstretched necks, hopping about the clods; the crows on the highroad stand still, look at you, peck at the earth, let you drive close up, and with two hops lazily move aside. On a hill beyond a ravine a peasant is ploughing; a piebald colt, with a cropped tail and ruffled mane, is running on unsteady legs after its mother; its shrill whinnying reaches us.

“A Story of the Days To Come” is a novella by H. G. Wells comprising five chapters that was first published in the June to October 1899 issues of The Pall Mall Magazine.

“A Story of the Red Cross; Glimpses of Field Work” by Clara Barton. Published by Good Press.