Description
The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses Simpson Grant are an American classic. In them Grant, the most able General of the Civil War, tells the story of his life and experiences, covering his birth, early youth, military training at West Point, his involvement as a Lieutenant in the Mexican War of 1847–48, and of course, his role in the Civil War of 1861–65, during which he rose to become the supreme commander of the Northern forces. After the Mexican War, Grant had left military service and became, essentially, an unsuccessful shopkeeper. Re-enlisting at the start of the Civil War, he rose to his ultimate position entirely on his own merits, showing himself to be a skilled strategist and a master of logistics.
What distinguishes Grant’s Personal Memoirs, and makes them a clear candidate for being considered a part of American literature, is the high quality and interest of the writing, for which Grant clearly had a talent. Though he goes into an extremely high level of detail about the military movements and struggles of the Civil War, the book is full of interest, and in parts is as gripping as a novel.
Obviously, Grant tells only his own part of the story and from the perspective of the ultimately successful forces; but his humanity shows through in the respect he offers to those on the other side, and in his acknowledgement of their sufferings, despite his clear condemnation of their cause of preserving slavery. He is generous in awarding due credit to others on his own side, and where blame is due tempering it with his understanding of that person’s character, background and circumstances.
After the war, Grant served two terms as President of the United States between 1869–77, but his Memoirs do not deal with this period. He began writing the book on his retirement, and completed it only after suffering from severe illness and not long before his death from throat cancer. The first edition was published in two volumes by Mark Twain in 1885.
This Standard Ebooks edition includes 43 maps reproduced from the 1895 edition of the Memoirs.
Description
The Little White Bird is generally divided into three sections: the first chronicles the narrator’s life in London, beginning with how he came to know a little boy named David (who joins him on his adventures), and describes other matters of his everyday life.
The second section tells the story of how Peter Pan came to be a “betwixt-and-between” and his adventures in Kensington Gardens, including his interactions with the birds as well as the fairies hidden in the park.
Finally, the third section of the book revisits London with the narrator and David. The two make brief visits to Kensington Gardens and embark on a new adventure to Patagonia.
The Little White Bird is the first story to include the famous Peter Pan character, two years before Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, the play that made the character famous. While The Little White Bird can be described as a prelude to the play, inconsistencies such as Peter Pan’s age make the two stories incompatible.
Description
Grace Melbury, daughter of a rich local wood-trader, has been raised beyond her family through years of expensive education. Coming home, she finds herself pulled between her love for her childhood friend Giles Winterborne, and the allure of the enigmatic Doctor Fitzpiers. Giles and Edgar have their own admirers too, and the backdrop of the bucolic pastures and woodlands of an impressionistic take on south-west England provides the perfect setting for their story.
The Woodlanders was commissioned by Macmillan’s Magazine in 1884, and was serialized and later published as a novel in 1887. The story’s themes of infidelity and less-than-blissful marriage were unusual for the time and drew ire from campaigners, but on its publication it garnered immediate critical acclaim. Thomas Hardy later regarded it as the favorite of his stories, and it’s remained perennially popular as a novel and as a series of adaptations to theatre, opera and film.
Description
The Awakening charts Edna Pontellier’s journey of self-discovery. The time spent with a younger friend on a summer holiday on Grand Isle in Lousiana unlocks a feeling in her that she can’t close away again. On returning to her family home in New Orleans, she starts to transition from unthinking housewife and mother into something freer and more confident, although this doesn’t meet with the full approval of the society she’s a part of.
Kate Chopin had written a novel previously, but she was mostly known as a writer of Louisiana-set short stories. The Awakening, while keeping the setting, charted new territory with its themes of marital infidelity and less-than-perfect devotion of a mother to her children. The consequent critical reception was less than enthusiastic—hardly surprising given the prevailing moral atmosphere of the time—and her next novel was cancelled. The Awakening was rediscovered in the 1960s and is now regarded as an important early example of American feminist literature.
Description
The Railway Children is Edith Nesbit’s most well-known and well-loved book for young readers. Since its first book publication in 1906, it has been made into movies, radio plays and television series several times, dramatised in the theatre, performed in actual railway stations, and even turned into a musical.
It tells the story of three children: Roberta, Peter and Phyllis, who with their mother are forced to leave their comfortable suburban home and go to live in a small cottage in the country, after their father is taken away from them for what at first seem inexplicable reasons. They live there very quietly, not going to school, whilst their mother writes stories and poems to earn a small income. The children’s lives, however, are greatly enlivened by their proximity to a nearby railway line and station, in which they take great interest. They befriend the railway staff and have several adventures in which they demonstrate considerable initiative and courage.
One unusual topic touched on by the book is the then-current Russia-Japan war, which divided opinion in England. Nesbit was clearly opposed to the actions of the Tsarist government of Russia, and she introduces into the story a Tolstoy-like Russian writer who has escaped from a prison camp in Siberia, to which he was condemned for publishing a book espousing his liberal views.
Description
Wilfred Owen was a soldier and poet during the second half of the first World War. His poetry, contrary to the propaganda of the time, dealt with the horrors of front-line trench warfare and was written at least partially out of a sense of duty to tell of the realities of war. Most of his poetry was published posthumously in 1920 after his death in combat in November 1918, a mere week before the armistice was signed.
His poetry, along with that of his close friend Siegfried Sassoon, is now regarded as an authentic voice of the experiences of the soldiers of the War. Held in especially high regard are Dulce Et Decorum Est with its vivid description of a gas attack, and Anthem for Doomed Youth. The poems are here presented in chronological order according to the date of final revision.
Description
Auguste Comte, considered by some to be the first “philosopher of science,” was perhaps most famous for founding the theory of Positivism: a framework of thinking and living meant to engender unity across humanity, backed by love, science, and intellect.
Positivism itself is a combination philosophy and way of life. Here Comte lays down the various tenets of the philosophy, describing what he views as the six major characteristics of the system. Comte goes into surprising detail, going so far as to describe minutiae like how children should be educated, the structure of a unified global committee of nations, new flags, calendars, the role of the arts, and so on. He ends the book with what he calls the “Religion of Humanity,” a secular religion meant to replace the traditional religions that people of the time were becoming disillusioned with.
The book and the theory are both very much products of the time. Comte was born around the end of the French Revolution, and lived in Paris during that time when republican ideas, respect for science, and a revolutionary and forward-thinking spirit made fertile ground for change. He viewed Positivism as the single solution to most of the problems of the day, including Communism, the plight of the working class, the shift away from traditional religion, and the constant war and strife that had plagued humanity.
Comte’s theories gained a huge following: you might even recognize the Positivist motto, “Order and Progress,” inscribed on Brazil’s national flag. While Positivism and its executive arm, the Church of Humanity, today only seem to survive in any significant number in Brazil—and even there in a greatly declined state—its theories were hugely influential in the emergence of many “ethical societies” and secular church movements around the globe.
Description
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894, is the second collection of Sherlock Holmes stories published in book form. All of the stories included in the collection previously appeared in The Strand Magazine between 1892 and 1893. They purport to be the accounts given by Dr. John Watson of the more remarkable cases in which his friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes becomes involved in his role as a consulting detective.
This collection has several memorable features. The first British edition omitted the story “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” which appeared in The Strand in 1893. This story did appear in the very first American edition of the collection, immediately following “Silver Blaze,” but it was quickly replaced by a revised edition which omitted it. Apparently these omissions were at the specific request of the author, who was concerned that its inclusion of the theme of adultery would make it unsuitable for younger readers. The story was, however, eventually included in the later collection His Last Bow, but it is out of chronological position there. In this Standard Ebooks edition (as in most modern British editions), we have included this story to restore it to its correct chronological place in the Holmes canon.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is also notable because by this time Doyle had tired of the Holmes character and decided to kill him off, so that this was intended to be the last Holmes collection ever to be published. It contains several of the best-known Holmes stories, including “Silver Blaze,” “The Musgrave Ritual,” and “The Greek Interpreter,” which introduces Sherlock’s brother Mycroft; and of course “The Final Problem” in which Holmes struggles with his nemesis Professor Moriarty.
Description
The Wonderful Visit is an early work by H. G. Wells, published in the same year as The Time Machine. It takes a gentle, semi-comic approach to some of Wells’ social concerns by using the device of an angel fallen into our world from the Land of Dreams. This external observer, largely ignorant of the ways of humans and our society, is able to focus an unbiased eye on our failings.
The story opens with a strange glare over the little village of Sidderford one night, observed by only a few. But then reports arise of a Strange Bird being seen in the woods. The Rev. Hilyer, the Vicar of Sidderford, is a keen ornithologist. He takes his gun and goes out to hunt this unusual specimen for his collection. He does indeed see a strange flying creature, shoots at it, and brings it down. To his horror, he finds that he has shot and wounded a man-like creature with wings—in fact, an Angel.
The Vicar restores the Angel to health, but finds himself incapable of convincing others that this person really is an angel. The continuing clashes of the Angel’s idealistic points of view with the harsh reality of the human world are the core of this story.
The Wonderful Visit was well-received by critics and Wells’ contemporaries. Joseph Conrad praised it for its imaginative approach in a personal letter to Wells.
Description
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was the first collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories Conan Doyle published in book form, following the popular success of the novels A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, which introduced the characters of Dr. John Watson and the austere analytical detective Sherlock Holmes.
The collection contains twelve stories, all originally published in The Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. Narrated by the first-person voice of Dr. Watson, they involve him and Holmes solving a series of mysterious cases.
Some of the more well-known stories in this collection are “A Scandal in Bohemia,” in which Holmes comes up against a worthy opponent in the form of Irene Adler, whom Holmes forever after admiringly refers to as the woman; “The Redheaded League,” involving a bizarre scheme offering a well-paid sinecure to redheaded men; and “The Speckled Band,” in which Holmes and Watson save a young woman from a terrible death.
Description
The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses Simpson Grant are an American classic. In them Grant, the most able General of the Civil War, tells the story of his life and experiences, covering his birth, early youth, military training at West Point, his involvement as a Lieutenant in the Mexican War of 1847–48, and of course, his role in the Civil War of 1861–65, during which he rose to become the supreme commander of the Northern forces. After the Mexican War, Grant had left military service and became, essentially, an unsuccessful shopkeeper. Re-enlisting at the start of the Civil War, he rose to his ultimate position entirely on his own merits, showing himself to be a skilled strategist and a master of logistics.
What distinguishes Grant’s Personal Memoirs, and makes them a clear candidate for being considered a part of American literature, is the high quality and interest of the writing, for which Grant clearly had a talent. Though he goes into an extremely high level of detail about the military movements and struggles of the Civil War, the book is full of interest, and in parts is as gripping as a novel.
Obviously, Grant tells only his own part of the story and from the perspective of the ultimately successful forces; but his humanity shows through in the respect he offers to those on the other side, and in his acknowledgement of their sufferings, despite his clear condemnation of their cause of preserving slavery. He is generous in awarding due credit to others on his own side, and where blame is due tempering it with his understanding of that person’s character, background and circumstances.
After the war, Grant served two terms as President of the United States between 1869–77, but his Memoirs do not deal with this period. He began writing the book on his retirement, and completed it only after suffering from severe illness and not long before his death from throat cancer. The first edition was published in two volumes by Mark Twain in 1885.
This Standard Ebooks edition includes 43 maps reproduced from the 1895 edition of the Memoirs.
Description
The Little White Bird is generally divided into three sections: the first chronicles the narrator’s life in London, beginning with how he came to know a little boy named David (who joins him on his adventures), and describes other matters of his everyday life.
The second section tells the story of how Peter Pan came to be a “betwixt-and-between” and his adventures in Kensington Gardens, including his interactions with the birds as well as the fairies hidden in the park.
Finally, the third section of the book revisits London with the narrator and David. The two make brief visits to Kensington Gardens and embark on a new adventure to Patagonia.
The Little White Bird is the first story to include the famous Peter Pan character, two years before Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, the play that made the character famous. While The Little White Bird can be described as a prelude to the play, inconsistencies such as Peter Pan’s age make the two stories incompatible.
Description
Grace Melbury, daughter of a rich local wood-trader, has been raised beyond her family through years of expensive education. Coming home, she finds herself pulled between her love for her childhood friend Giles Winterborne, and the allure of the enigmatic Doctor Fitzpiers. Giles and Edgar have their own admirers too, and the backdrop of the bucolic pastures and woodlands of an impressionistic take on south-west England provides the perfect setting for their story.
The Woodlanders was commissioned by Macmillan’s Magazine in 1884, and was serialized and later published as a novel in 1887. The story’s themes of infidelity and less-than-blissful marriage were unusual for the time and drew ire from campaigners, but on its publication it garnered immediate critical acclaim. Thomas Hardy later regarded it as the favorite of his stories, and it’s remained perennially popular as a novel and as a series of adaptations to theatre, opera and film.
Description
The Awakening charts Edna Pontellier’s journey of self-discovery. The time spent with a younger friend on a summer holiday on Grand Isle in Lousiana unlocks a feeling in her that she can’t close away again. On returning to her family home in New Orleans, she starts to transition from unthinking housewife and mother into something freer and more confident, although this doesn’t meet with the full approval of the society she’s a part of.
Kate Chopin had written a novel previously, but she was mostly known as a writer of Louisiana-set short stories. The Awakening, while keeping the setting, charted new territory with its themes of marital infidelity and less-than-perfect devotion of a mother to her children. The consequent critical reception was less than enthusiastic—hardly surprising given the prevailing moral atmosphere of the time—and her next novel was cancelled. The Awakening was rediscovered in the 1960s and is now regarded as an important early example of American feminist literature.
Description
The Railway Children is Edith Nesbit’s most well-known and well-loved book for young readers. Since its first book publication in 1906, it has been made into movies, radio plays and television series several times, dramatised in the theatre, performed in actual railway stations, and even turned into a musical.
It tells the story of three children: Roberta, Peter and Phyllis, who with their mother are forced to leave their comfortable suburban home and go to live in a small cottage in the country, after their father is taken away from them for what at first seem inexplicable reasons. They live there very quietly, not going to school, whilst their mother writes stories and poems to earn a small income. The children’s lives, however, are greatly enlivened by their proximity to a nearby railway line and station, in which they take great interest. They befriend the railway staff and have several adventures in which they demonstrate considerable initiative and courage.
One unusual topic touched on by the book is the then-current Russia-Japan war, which divided opinion in England. Nesbit was clearly opposed to the actions of the Tsarist government of Russia, and she introduces into the story a Tolstoy-like Russian writer who has escaped from a prison camp in Siberia, to which he was condemned for publishing a book espousing his liberal views.
Description
Wilfred Owen was a soldier and poet during the second half of the first World War. His poetry, contrary to the propaganda of the time, dealt with the horrors of front-line trench warfare and was written at least partially out of a sense of duty to tell of the realities of war. Most of his poetry was published posthumously in 1920 after his death in combat in November 1918, a mere week before the armistice was signed.
His poetry, along with that of his close friend Siegfried Sassoon, is now regarded as an authentic voice of the experiences of the soldiers of the War. Held in especially high regard are Dulce Et Decorum Est with its vivid description of a gas attack, and Anthem for Doomed Youth. The poems are here presented in chronological order according to the date of final revision.
Description
Auguste Comte, considered by some to be the first “philosopher of science,” was perhaps most famous for founding the theory of Positivism: a framework of thinking and living meant to engender unity across humanity, backed by love, science, and intellect.
Positivism itself is a combination philosophy and way of life. Here Comte lays down the various tenets of the philosophy, describing what he views as the six major characteristics of the system. Comte goes into surprising detail, going so far as to describe minutiae like how children should be educated, the structure of a unified global committee of nations, new flags, calendars, the role of the arts, and so on. He ends the book with what he calls the “Religion of Humanity,” a secular religion meant to replace the traditional religions that people of the time were becoming disillusioned with.
The book and the theory are both very much products of the time. Comte was born around the end of the French Revolution, and lived in Paris during that time when republican ideas, respect for science, and a revolutionary and forward-thinking spirit made fertile ground for change. He viewed Positivism as the single solution to most of the problems of the day, including Communism, the plight of the working class, the shift away from traditional religion, and the constant war and strife that had plagued humanity.
Comte’s theories gained a huge following: you might even recognize the Positivist motto, “Order and Progress,” inscribed on Brazil’s national flag. While Positivism and its executive arm, the Church of Humanity, today only seem to survive in any significant number in Brazil—and even there in a greatly declined state—its theories were hugely influential in the emergence of many “ethical societies” and secular church movements around the globe.
Description
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1894, is the second collection of Sherlock Holmes stories published in book form. All of the stories included in the collection previously appeared in The Strand Magazine between 1892 and 1893. They purport to be the accounts given by Dr. John Watson of the more remarkable cases in which his friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes becomes involved in his role as a consulting detective.
This collection has several memorable features. The first British edition omitted the story “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” which appeared in The Strand in 1893. This story did appear in the very first American edition of the collection, immediately following “Silver Blaze,” but it was quickly replaced by a revised edition which omitted it. Apparently these omissions were at the specific request of the author, who was concerned that its inclusion of the theme of adultery would make it unsuitable for younger readers. The story was, however, eventually included in the later collection His Last Bow, but it is out of chronological position there. In this Standard Ebooks edition (as in most modern British editions), we have included this story to restore it to its correct chronological place in the Holmes canon.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is also notable because by this time Doyle had tired of the Holmes character and decided to kill him off, so that this was intended to be the last Holmes collection ever to be published. It contains several of the best-known Holmes stories, including “Silver Blaze,” “The Musgrave Ritual,” and “The Greek Interpreter,” which introduces Sherlock’s brother Mycroft; and of course “The Final Problem” in which Holmes struggles with his nemesis Professor Moriarty.
Description
The Wonderful Visit is an early work by H. G. Wells, published in the same year as The Time Machine. It takes a gentle, semi-comic approach to some of Wells’ social concerns by using the device of an angel fallen into our world from the Land of Dreams. This external observer, largely ignorant of the ways of humans and our society, is able to focus an unbiased eye on our failings.
The story opens with a strange glare over the little village of Sidderford one night, observed by only a few. But then reports arise of a Strange Bird being seen in the woods. The Rev. Hilyer, the Vicar of Sidderford, is a keen ornithologist. He takes his gun and goes out to hunt this unusual specimen for his collection. He does indeed see a strange flying creature, shoots at it, and brings it down. To his horror, he finds that he has shot and wounded a man-like creature with wings—in fact, an Angel.
The Vicar restores the Angel to health, but finds himself incapable of convincing others that this person really is an angel. The continuing clashes of the Angel’s idealistic points of view with the harsh reality of the human world are the core of this story.
The Wonderful Visit was well-received by critics and Wells’ contemporaries. Joseph Conrad praised it for its imaginative approach in a personal letter to Wells.
Description
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was the first collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories Conan Doyle published in book form, following the popular success of the novels A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, which introduced the characters of Dr. John Watson and the austere analytical detective Sherlock Holmes.
The collection contains twelve stories, all originally published in The Strand Magazine between July 1891 and June 1892. Narrated by the first-person voice of Dr. Watson, they involve him and Holmes solving a series of mysterious cases.
Some of the more well-known stories in this collection are “A Scandal in Bohemia,” in which Holmes comes up against a worthy opponent in the form of Irene Adler, whom Holmes forever after admiringly refers to as the woman; “The Redheaded League,” involving a bizarre scheme offering a well-paid sinecure to redheaded men; and “The Speckled Band,” in which Holmes and Watson save a young woman from a terrible death.