Black Beauty is Anna Sewell’s first and only novel. The story is told in the “first person” (or first horse) as an autobiographical memoir of a highbred horse named Black Beauty, from his carefree days as a foal on an English farm, to his difficult...

The mysterious Frank Ware is a woman writer forced to write under a masculine pseudonym in order to win literary respect. Adding to her enigmatic status is the fact that she lives in New York City with her adopted child, a little son of unknown...

A series of occasionally witty one-liners, poems and considerations on the subject of Men, Women and their Conjunction. By turns tender, bland, sexist (in both directions!) and funny. Summary by Cori Samuel. From the text: A man is like a park...

America has had a fascination with dinosaurs, particularly since the wild enthusiasm of Jurassic Park and its sequels. The term "dinosaur" was coined in 1841 by the Victorian scientist Sir Richard Owen. By the end of the 19th century, geologists and...

This is a collection of scenes from Shakespeare's plays, mainly comprising dialogues between two characters. The theme for this collection is "Wooing, Wedding, and Repenting" (inspired by a line from Much Ado About Nothing). (Summary by Elizabeth...

This book presents a brief bio and a summary of important ideas & events in the lives of 23 great philosophers from ancient times through the 19th century. The book focuses on freethinkers, who are known to say things which upset those in power,...

In the northern outreaches of the Canadian wilderness, it was understood that the Hudson Bay Company governed all trading, and one factor named Galen Albret took his position seriously. Free traders, or those who dared try to do their trading...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 19 recordings of Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher by Walter Savage Landor. This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 1, 2011. Walter Savage Landor was an English writer and poet. His best known works were the...

This slim volume by the Oxford University lecturer, George Henry Wakeling, deals with the period in British history from the reign of King James I through the death of Queen Anne. The story begins with England, transformed by the Protestant...

The poems and stories in this collection were selected with the reader’s grandchildren in mind. “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphant Annie,” both by James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet were favorites of the reader when she was a child on a farm...

Witty, opinionated alphabetical examples of what Bierce considered poor (American) English and advice on alternatives - entertaining, thought-provoking, occasionally outdated but so interesting to see how style and taste have changed. Summary by...

Science fiction is a genre encompassing imaginative works that take place in this world or that of the author’s creation where anything is possible. The only rules are those set forth by the author. The speculative nature of the genre inspires...

They were broadcasts from nowhere--sinister emanations flooding in from space--smashing any receiver that picked them up. What defense could Earth devise against science such as this? In the far future of 1972, on a secret military installation,...

Betsy Bobbin encounters many strange and exciting adventures and people in the land of Oz; a side-plot is Queen Ann of Oogaboo's mission to take over Oz. (Summary by Ryan T.)...

King Henry IV, Part 1 is the second of Shakespeare’s eight Wars of the Roses history plays, with events following those of King Richard II. As the play opens, King Henry IV (formerly Henry Bolingbroke) and Henry Percy (Hotspur) argue over the...

Erewhon, or Over the Range is a novel by Samuel Butler, published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed in which part of the world Erewhon is, but it...

Ambassador Morgenthau’s memoirs of his years in the service of the United States in Constantinople, (today Istanbul), are an important primary historical resource for the study of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide....

This is the third of ten volumes of poetry edited by Canadian poet laureate Bliss Carman (1861-1929). This collection, the second of two parts, includes a range of famous poems relating to such topics as comfort and cheer; death and bereavement; and...

John Muir (1838–1914) was one of the first modern preservationists. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, and wildlife, especially in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, were read by millions and are still...

The tales of King Arthur and his Knights are of Celtic origin. The Celts were the people who occupied Britain at the time when the history of the country opens, and a few words are necessary to explain why the characters in the stories act and speak...