More than a 100 years after his death, Charles Dickens is still entertaining readers with his classic "A Christmas Carol," the timeless classic which popularized the terms "Merry Christmas," "Tiny Tim," and "Scrooge"-in addition to influencing the way much of the world celebrates Christmas. Charles Dickens, (1812-1870), was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most iconic characters, with the theme of social reform running throughout his work. The continuing popularity of his novels and short stories is such that they have never gone out of print. Much of his work first appeared in periodicals and magazines in serialised form, a popular way of publishing fiction at the time. Other writers would complete entire novels before serial publication commenced, but Dickens often wrote his in parts, in the order they were meant to appear. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by one "cliffhanger" after another, to keep the public eager for the next installment. His work has been praised for its mastery of prose, and for its teeming gallery of unique personalities, by writers such as George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton, though the same characteristics have prompted others, such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf, to criticize him for sentimentality and implausibility.

Charles Dicken's a Christmas Carol --Annotated Edition

Charles, Dickens

Kerry Gene

Cedar Lake Publications

Creasy's most famous work, the Fifteen Battles, reveals much about 19th century white-supremacist European sentiment, being laced with explicit references to the deplorable barbarism and immorality of non-Europeans. Indeed, the reason Creasy gives for the significance of most of the fifteen battles, is the very fact that they denied Middle Eastern / Far Eastern people groups access to European soil. For example, Attila the Hun's defeat at Chalons, defeat of the Moors at Tours, Babylonian defeat at Arbella, Defeat of Hasdrubel at Metaurus, other Carthaginian defeats in Mediterranean and the first battle Creasy describes, Marathon. Coming as he does, just before Darwin, Creasy's world-view is notably one of 'enlightenment', and he sees Europe as the origin of civilization. His logic is ephemeral, as he ascribes the Christian Gospel as a gift to Europe, which she alone could deserve. He shares with most Post-Waterloo, 19th century writers the illusion that world peace has been achieved by enlightened Man. Ranging from Marathon to Waterloo, this 1851 classic of military history chronicles the battles that changed the course of history. It ranks among the most influential, popular histories ever published, and generations of students and historians have appreciated its gripping, authoritative analyzes of  battles at Tours, Hastings, Saratoga, and elsewhere.

Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World : From Marathon to Waterloo

Edward Shepherd Creasy

Advancement of Learning

Francis, Bacon

“The Hawaiian Archipelago” is a great eyewitness account of Hawaii in 1863, by one of the era's most intrepid travelers, after it had been impacted by its collision with the American and European powers but while it was still a robust independent Kingdom and before its forced assimilation into the USA. Isabella Bird visited the Sandwich Islands in 1871, when she was forty. Her letters home to her sister Henrietta have a remarkable freshness and spontaneity, and reveal the transformation of a Victorian invalid into a fearless horsewoman and enthusiastic mountain-climber, who thought nothing of riding for miles soaked with rain and fording terrifyingly swollen rivers. She undertook a thirteen-hour unaccompanied trek to the summit of the extinct volcano of Mauna Kea, revelling in the security with which she was able to travel and camp out without guides or companions. At the end of her stay she was able to make the perilous ascent to the summit of Mauna Loa, the largest volcano in the world, camping for the night on the edge of the crater, at nearly 14,000 feet. Isabella Bird's travel writing is a wonderful look at the world at the turn of the last century. Her writing is fluid and clear and her insights into people and places are gentile but pointed. In “The Hawaiian Archipelago,” Isabella Bird is at her best, giving the reader a fascinating and insightful taste of the old Hawaii.

Hawaiian Archipelago : Six Months Amongst Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands

Isabella Lucy Bird

"A Little Book of Stoicism," though small, is a clear, and thoughtful classic by St. George Stock. Considered to be a concise primer on Stoicism, "A Little Book of Stoicism" explains the ancient philosophy that maintained that the universe is governed entirely by fate and that humans can achieve happiness only by cultivating a calm acceptance of the vicissitudes of life. Among the Stoics of the Greek and Roman world were its founder, Zeno, the former slave Epictetus, and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. George Stock discusses not only the Stoic ethics, but also less well-known aspects of Stoicism, such as its division of the branches of philosophy, its account of logic, and its natural philosophy. "A Little Book of Stoicism" provides a solid outline on Stoicism and lucid, though brief, analysis of the strengths and limitations of stoical issues. Stoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. The Stoics considered destructive emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not undergo such emotions. Stoics were concerned with the active relationship between cosmic determinism and human freedom, and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a will (called prohairesis) that is in accord with nature.

Little Book of Stoicism

St George Stock

"The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith lays the foundations of modern economics without the formalization which would come later. Adam Smith starts by exploring the need for specialization of labor once societies advance beyond the hunter gatherer phase, making the natural assumption that each individual pursues their best interests. Smith then foreshadows the concepts of marginal utility and scarcity in determining the shapes of demand curves for commodities. Similarly, he describes the three factors determining supply prices for commodities (rent of land, wages and capital costs ) and the various factors which influence them (the equivalent of modern supply/demand curves for each factor ). Smith then puts these together under ideal circumstances to show how supply and demand meet to clear markets (equilibrium in modern language). "The Wealth of Nations" covers macroeconomics, laying the foundations for GDP and showing how capital can be distributed to unproductive and productive labor. "The Wealth of Nations" also explores the consequences of various distribution of each from both the micro and macroeconomic perspective. Adam Smith concludes by emphasizing the importance of government in providing international and domestic security as well as providing public works and institutions especially education. Naturally this requires state revenue and he devotes almost one entire "book" to taxes. Smith also delves briefly into political economy especially mercantilism and its detrimental effects to society at large. "The Wealth of Nations" is a great introduction to modern economics which explains the motivation for many modern economic concepts which are too often lost today.

Wealth of Nations

Adam, Smith

William Wells Brown (November 6, 1814 – November 6, 1884) was a prominent abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian. Born into slavery in the Southern United States, Brown escaped to the North, where he worked for abolitionist causes and was a prolific writer. Brown was a pioneer in several different literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, and drama, and wrote what is considered to be the first novel by an African American. An almost exact contemporary of Frederick Douglass, Wells Brown was overshadowed by Douglass and the two feuded publicly. William Wells Brown was born into slavery in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Elizabeth, was owned by a Dr. Young and had seven children, all with different fathers. (In addition to Brown, her children were Solomon, Leander, Benjamin, Joseph, Milford, and Elizabeth.) Brown's father was George Higgins, a white plantation owner and cousin of the owner of the plantation where Brown was born. Even though Young promised Higgins never to sell the boy, he was sold multiple times before he was twenty years old. Brown spent the majority of his youth in St. Louis. His masters hired him out to work on the Missouri River, then a major thoroughfare for the slave trade. He made several attempts to escape, and on New Year's Day of 1834, he successfully slipped away from a steamboat at a dock in Cincinnati, Ohio. He adopted the name of a Quaker friend of his, who had helped him after his escape by providing him with food, clothes and some money. Shortly after gaining his freedom, he met and married Elizabeth Schooner, a free African-American woman, from whom he separated and later divorced, causing a minor scandal. Together they had three daughters. From 1836 to about 1845, Brown made his home in Buffalo, New York, where he served as a conductor for the Underground Railroad and as a steam boatman on Lake Erie, a position he used to ferry escaped slaves to freedom in Canada. There Brown became active in the abolitionist movement by joining several anti-slavery societies and the Negro Convention Movement.

Narrative of William W Brown, a Fugitive Slave

William Wells Brown

Bel Ami, written at the height of Guy de Maupassant’s powers, is a classic novel of seduction, intrigue, and ruthless social climbing in belle époque Paris. Georges Duroy is a down-and-out journalist from a humble background who engineers a stunning rise to the top of Parisian society through his relationships with influential and wealthy women. Making the most of his charm and good looks (his admirers nickname him “Bel Ami”), Duroy exploits the weaknesses of others to his own advantage—in the process betraying the woman who has most selflessly supported him. Published in 1885, Bel Ami is not only a vivid portrait of a glamorously corrupt and long-vanished Paris, but also a strikingly modern exposé of the destructiveness of unconstrained ambition, sex, and power.

Bel Ami

guy-de-maupassant

"How the Other Half Lives" by Jacob Riis sheds fascinating light on how our immigrants in the 1800's lived in New York City. A must-read for Americans whose family has been in the U.S. for only a few generations, this book tells what it was really like in the slums. Whether Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese or Polish, German, Russian, hordes of refugees ended up in New York on the promise of a better life. Entrepreneurs lured poor people from Eastern Europe and contracted out their labor in sweat shops in the US. The laborers lived in tenements, which were dark, unventilated cages in blocks of buildings that rented for a surprising high rent to people who died by the thousands in the unsanitary conditions. The conditions described by Jacob Riis in this classic are heart-rending, especially the part about foundling babies (abandoned newborns). A cradle was put outside a Catholic Church and instead of a baby each night, racks of babies appeared. The Church had to establish foundling hospitals run by nuns, who persuaded the unwed or impoverished mothers to nurse the baby they gave up, plus another baby. The child mortality rate, especially in the "back tenements" or buildings built on to the back of others (dark and airless) was incredible. Riis also provides interesting information about the gangs of New York in "How the Other Half Lived."

How the Other Half Lives : A Jacob Riis Classic (Including Photography)

Jacob Riis

"Letters of a Woman Homesteader" is a frontier classic by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, a widowed young mother who accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming. In Stewart's delightful collection of letters, she describes her homesteading experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney. Stewart's charming descriptions of work, travels, neighbors, animals, land and sky have an authentic feel. The West comes alive, and everyday life becomes captivating. Stewart's writing is clear, witty, and entertaining. Clear as a bell, concise yet comprehensive, replete with localisms and skillfully rendered frontier humor, it makes one want to toss the PC and reference library into the trash and move to some unspoiled wilderness. The 26 letters are brief and tell about her life on the ranch in the early 1900s. The author frequently and unnecessarily apologizes for being too wordy; she begs forgiveness for many "faults," like being forgetful, ungrateful, inconsistent and indifferent, all without apparent cause. On occasion, language reflects the racial prejudice of the time. Many times in "Letters of a Woman Homesteader" Stewart attempts to portray the culturally diverse characters she meets by writing their various dialects as they sound. After enjoying this book, readers will be equipped with a whole new view of not only life in the early 20th century but of the impact woman had on it.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader

Elinore Pruitt Stewart

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