"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," so begins Charles Dickens's famous novel concerning the contentious time leading up to and during the French Revolution. In these first words Dickens exemplifies the dichotomous relationship that existed between the aristocracy and the lower classes of the time and the universal themes that would be depicted throughout the book. "A Tale of Two Cities," is set in London and Paris, the titular two cities, at the end of the 18th century, and principally concerns the lives of Dr. Alexandre Manette, his daughter ...

This comprehensive collection of Twain’s short stories showcases his immense talent, humor, and wit. Considered to be the greatest American humorist of all time, Mark Twain was born in 1835 and was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, where many of his most well-known stories take place. Twain led an adventurous life: working as a type setter for his brother’s newspaper as a young man, then as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi river, followed by a stint as a miner in Nevada and California, and then finally as a journalist and writer, where he found ...

E. W. Bullinger was a 19th century English clergyman, scholar, and prolific author. He is best-known for his detailed six-part work “The Companion Bible”, which was published over many years from 1909 to 1922. That comprehensive guide has assisted countless readers in their goal of better understanding the Bible. In his work “Number in Scripture”, Bullinger examines in impressive detail all of the occurrences of numbers in the Bible and concludes that an examination of these numerical references proves that it was written by God and ...

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a self-designated English novelist. He wrote an astonishing quantity in a great variety of genres while creating a broad range of themes and characters. Winning a literary competition in "Tit-Bits" magazine in 1889 was the kick-off to his literary career. The early novels of Bennett played a significant role in the transition from the Victorian to the modern novel. A contemporary of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Thomas Hardy, he helped to develop the realistic movement in England. In his career, Bennett won only one major ...

Believed to have been written in 1591, William Shakespeare’s “Richard III” is one of the bards first plays, the first installment in a tetralogy of plays which includes “Henry IV, Part I”, “Henry IV, Part II”, and “Henry V”. One of the longest of Shakespeare’s plays and consequently rarely performed unabridged, “Richard III” is the story of the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England. The play begins with Richard, known in the play as Gloucester ...

First published in 1881, “What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking: Soups, Pickles, Preserves, etc.” is the informative and practical guide to cooking, canning, and preserving by former slave Abby Fisher. The author was born into slavery in South Carolina in 1831 and moved to San Francisco in 1877, where she achieved fame for her pickle company and award-winning cooking. While Fisher was illiterate, she was full of wisdom and practical experience from decades of cooking and canning and dictated the 160 recipes in this classic cookbook ...

First published in 1864, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” is Jules Verne’s classic tale of adventure, one of the earliest examples of science fiction. When German professor Otto Liedenbrock finds a coded message in an original runic manuscript of Snorri Sturluson’s Icelandic saga, “Heimskringla,” he discovers what he believes to be a secret passage to the center of the Earth. Professor Liedenbrock, who has long hypothesized that there are volcanic tubes which descend deep into the Earth, embarks immediately for Iceland ...

First published in 1834, “A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett” is the autobiography of the famous American folk hero Davy Crockett, often referred to as the “King of the Wild Frontier”. Born in 1786 in Tennessee to an impoverished family who often struggled to make ends meet, Crockett was an adventurous and resourceful boy who was forced at 12 years old to work to support himself. Crockett recounts these early formative years of hardship, as well as his two marriages, famed bear hunts, battles with Indians during his service ...

Set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North of England, "North and South" is Elizabeth Gaskell's 1855 novel that contrasts the different ways of life in the two respective regions of England. In the North the emerging industrialized society is sharply contrasted with the aging gentry of the agrarian based South. The plot of "North and South" centers around the main character Margaret Hale, the daughter of a non-conformist minister who moves his family to an industrial town in the North after a split from the Church of England. Here the impact ...

First published in 1902, “The Varieties of Religious Experience” is William James’ philosophical and psychological examination of the nature of religion in human civilization. Based on James’s own Gifford Lectures given at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland between 1901 and 1902, James argues that “Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see ‘the liver’ determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist ...