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Set during the American Revolution. Richard Dudgeon, put off by the dour religious ferocity of his stepmother and many of his neighbors, declares himself to be the devil's disciple, befriends the town's disreputable characters, repulses minister Anthony Anderson's dutiful attempts to save his soul, and takes a certain grim satisfaction in the shocked disapproval of his neighbors, including Anderson's young wife Judith. But when the British Army under General Burgoyne approaches, seeking prominent rebels, of whom to make examples, Richard, Anthony, and Judith are faced with a crisis that knocks them all loose from their comfortable roles. Rudeness, repartee, role reversal, irony, heroics, and excessive authorial commentary abound.
"The ambition of the editor has been to provide an accurate and complete text, with adequate critical and supplementary matter, of all those plays which can, without entire absurdity, be included in the 'doubtfully Shakespearian' class."
Genre(s): Literary Criticism
Seven chapters involving Christmas from different books. Plus part 8 which is twelve verses about Christmas and part 9 which is four Christmas carols by Christina Rossetti.
Genre(s): Essays & Short Works, Nature, Religion
A collection of poems by the Gloucestershire-born English poet Ivor Gurney describing his feelings about the First World War, during which he served on the Western Front and was wounded by a mustard gas attack, and its aftermath.
Genre(s): Poetry, Single author
When Frederick Philip Grove settled in a remote area of Manitoba in the early years of the 20th century, he found work teaching in a school over 30 miles from his home. He commuted by horse-and-wagon or horse-and-sleigh each weekend, and seven of those long and challenging journeys are recorded in “Over Prairie Trails,” published in 1922.
Genre(s): Nature, Memoirs
Sentimental Education (French: L'Éducation sentimentale, 1869) is a novel by Gustave Flaubert, that is considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century. The story focuses on the romantic life of a young man at the time of the French Revolution of 1848.
Genre(s): Historical Fiction, Romance
Tommy is a young farm lad with a keen interest in all animals. On the edge of the Green Meadows, he finds an old grey rock. He discovers that when he sits there, Tommy can wish and become any animal. From frogs to geese to beavers and bears, the young boy experiences firsthand the joys and sorrows of animal lives.
Genre(s): Animals & Nature
Listen, children, for you will wish to hear where I found the tales which I have told you in this little book. It is long, oh! so long ago, that they were sung up hill and down dale by wandering singers who soon became known all over the country as minstrels, or ofttimes, because they would carry with them a harp, as harpers. In court, in cottage, by princes and by humble folk, everywhere, by every one the minstrels were greeted with delight. To such sweet music did they sing the songs or ballads which they made or perchance had heard, to such sweet music, that those who listened could forget nor tale nor tune. In those far-off days of minstrelsy the country was alive with fairies. Over the mountains, through the glens, by babbling streams and across silent moors, the patter of tiny feet might be heard, feet which had strayed from Elfinland. It was of these little folk and of their visits to the homes of mortals that the minstrels sang. Sterner songs too were theirs, songs of war and bloodshed, when clan fought with clan and lives were lost and brave deeds were done. Of all indeed that made life glad or sad, of these the minstrels sang. From town to village, from court to inn they wandered, singing the old songs, adding verses to them here, dropping lines from them there, singing betimes a strain unheard before, until at length the day came when the songs were written down. It was in the old books that thus came to be written that I first found these tales, and when you have read them perhaps you will wish to go yourself to the same old books, to find many another song of love and hate, of joy and sorrow.
Genre(s): Myths, Legends & Fairy Tales
Eight sketches by one of the pioneers of applied psychology, which highlight the mind of the witness on the witness stand, and how one can be an unreliable eyewitness. The last essay, on the prevention of crime, takes another direction.
Genre(s): Psychology, True Crime
Victor Daley, then a happy, wondering Irish lad, drifted out to Australia. His head was full of old tunes and fragments of poetry; his pocket was nearly empty. The sunshine and freedom of Australia delighted him, and, in careless, vagabond fashion he enjoyed the fleeting pleasures of the day with little thought of the morrow. A good companion, " a fellow of infinite jest," life to him was a gallant spectacle, which he loved to look at and did not take seriously. Worldly success never tempted him, for he was a Bohemian by birth; but he was also descendant of a bardic sept, and he wanted to be a poet. So he wrote verses charged with the melancholy regret of the Celt for vanished glories and the beauty of remote things, dainty opalescent lyrics with hints of fairy music, witty and ironic verse on passing events, and, occasionally, prose sketches. When the pressure of hard realities brought sorrow into his life he wrote more gaily and vigorously than ever. For twenty years or more he charmed a large number of readers. In this thinly-peopled continent the makers of verse are numerous, and though Daley never appealed to so large an audience as the ballad writers, he was the writer best beloved of the writing clan.
Genre(s): Single author
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