Classics Books

It may be regarded as one of the commendable peculiarities of the English language that, despite provincialisms, vulgarisms, neglected education, foreign accent, and the various corrupting influences to which it is subjected, it may be understood wherever it is heard, whatever differences of distance or associations may have existed between the speaker and the listener, both claiming familiarity with... more...

t was Charley's fault, of course; all of it.... Temperature outside was a rough 280 degrees F., which is plenty rough and about three degrees cooler than Hell. It was somewhere over the Lunar Appenines and the sun bored down from an airless sky like an unshielded atomic furnace. The thermal adjustors whined and snarled and clogged-up until the inside of the space sled was just bearable. Tod Denver... more...

POEMS By John Hay Note to Revised Edition The Publishers of this volume, desiring to print it in an improved form, have asked me to write something by way of preface or supplement to the new edition. After some deliberation I have found myself unable to comply with this request. These pages were written in the first half of the year 1870, a time of intense interest and importance, to Spain. I left... more...

My Lords and Gentlemen,   hough the Author of the ensuing Tract may be below your Notice, as an Individual, yet the Subject he treats upon, highly deserves your most serious Attention. In the present unhappy Disputes between the Parent-State and the Colonies, he undertakes to point out, what Measures the Landed-Interest of Great-Britain and Ireland ought to pursue in future, for the Sake of themselves... more...

THE TWENTY-FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIAD, Attempted in English Hexameters. [It may be thought idle or presumptuous to make a new attempt towards the naturalization among us of any measure based on the ancient hexameter. Even Mr Southey has not been in general successful in such efforts; yet no one can deny that here and there—as, for instance, at the opening of his Vision of Judgment, and in his... more...

PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET. No. I. Sketch of Púshkin's Life and Works, by Thomas B. Shaw, B.A. of Cambridge, Adjunct Professor of English Literature in the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, Translator of "The Heretic," &c. &c. Among the many striking analogies which exist between the physical and intellectual creations, and exhibit the uniform method adopted by Supreme Wisdom in the... more...

CHAPTER I. Caledonia, stern and wild, may be called "meet nurse" of geologists as well as of poets. Among the most remarkable of the former is Charles Lyell, who was born in Forfarshire on November 14th, 1797, at Kinnordy, the family mansion. His father, who also bore the name of Charles, was both a lover of natural history and a man of high culture. He took an interest at one time in... more...

INTRODUCTION EARLY SUGGESTIONS REGARDING THE TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE BY INSECTS Until very recent years insects and their allies have been considered as of economic importance merely in so far as they are an annoyance or direct menace to man, or his flocks and herds, or are injurious to his crops. It is only within the past fifteen years that there has sprung into prominence the knowledge that in... more...

Foreword My sole aim in bringing this little pamphlet to you is to definitely call the attention of the men and women of the Central Western States, and especially those of the City of Chicago into whose hands it may come, to the vicious, thoroughly organized white-slave traffic of to-day, and its attendant, far-reaching, horrible results upon the young man and womanhood of our Land. During a constant... more...

INTRODUCTION. Throughout this book, and the next, you will find passages taken from the writings of the best English authors. But the passages are not all equal, nor are they all such as we would call "the best," and the more you read and are able to judge them for yourselves, the better you will be able to see what is the difference between the best and those that are not so good. By the best... more...