"We would no more choose to feed the minds of our countrymen and women with the despairing utterances of the pessimist poet, than we would their bodies with hasheesh. Such melancholy as his clothed in such eloquent words may be the luxury of the idle; it is poison to those who have work to do in the world. It shuts out hope, the very spring of energy; it makes the cheerful steady pursuit of duty a thing utterly beyond human powers. For we can none of us stand alone. Either in human or divine love we must find the mainspring of all life worth living. There must be something outside of ourselves which we regard not with despair, but with hope." -- Handwritten dedication in the book, dated F...

"The use of pearls as jewels and their recognition as objects of value date back into the far beyond when the histories of ancient peoples were transcribed upon papyrus. It is very likely that pearls were amongst the earliest gems known to man, and this is not surprising when one considers that the earliest dwellers by the sea probably fed upon the shellfish which produce such objects." This book was written by an Australian zoologist with a view to giving the average reader a summary of the most important facts about pearls, pearl fishing and pearl formation. (from "Pearls")

The scene is Rome, 935 A.D. Thirty-year-old Tristan, dressed as a pilgrim, overhears a conversation between Basil, the Grand Chamberlain, and Il Gobbo, his assistant. After the two have left, Tristan continues to observe the revelry on the Eve of St. John. Suddenly a chariot containing a beautiful woman stops before him. They exchange words. He kisses her hand. Then she moves on, leaving him to ponder her beauty as he returns to the inn where he is staying. That night he has an enchanting and haunting dream of him together with another woman. Morning makes more sense of the dream. He was in love with Hellayne, who sent him away to Rome so that he could do penance for the sin of love. Thi...

Bertram Greene, brilliant student, aesthete, intellectual and shy, decides to make his military father proud of him at last and joins the colonial Indian Army Reserve as a second Lieutenant at the start of Great War. Feeling a complete fish out of water, he is dispatched to India without any training whatsoever, and is expected to take charge of a company of native soldiers. He is then posted to East Africa to join the British fighting force there, and finds out what real soldiering means. This amusing, and at times harrowing tale gives a comprehensive description of the life and conditions of a soldier in the tropics, obviously written by someone who has experienced them. The author, P. ...

This is a basic grammar, treating of the parts of speech, syntax, versification, pronunciation and punctuation.

The listener is warned that there is quite a dated feel about this little grammar as the author, in keeping with the times (1840), is a frightful snob about social classes, scathing about 'vulgar speech' and also sometimes quite rude about American turns of phrase. The author is not remotely as comical as he thinks he is, but it has its moments.

Jessie Pope was an extremely patriotic English poet, writer and journalist, who remains best known for her patriotic motivational poems published during World War I. This poem is from Paper Pellets (1907), an anthology of humorous verse.

A collection of five stories by Anthony Trollope: Why Frau Frohmann Raised Her Prices; The Lady of Launay; Christmas at Thompson Hall; The Telegraph Girl; and Alice Dugdale

Stories of World War I warfare, published in 1916 in the midst of the war. (That's why names of persons and units are literally "blanked" out.) Alec John Dawson (1872 - 1951), generally known as A. J. Dawson (pseudonyms Major Dawson, Howard Kerr, Nicholas Freydon) was an English author, traveller and novelist. During World War I he attained the rank of Major, and was awarded the MBE and Croix de Guerre in recognition of his work as a military propagandist, a work the listener may want to keep in mind. (Terminology note: "Boche" means the Germans, singular or plural; "Blighty" means hospitalization in England; "The Push" means fighting in the Somme offensive.)

The Battle of the Som...

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (11 November 1633 – 5 April 1695) was an English statesman, writer, and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1660, and in the House of Lords after he was raised to the peerage in 1668. He's noted in history for his views on Charles II among others. This compilation covers a wide range of his views which are particularly telling, coming, as they do, from a man who was singularly positioned among the powers of the time, to make them. Prepare yourself for a journey into antiquated English speech.

This is an absorbing memoir of an inmate's experiences and impressions while in a London prison. He describes himself as "a man of education and worldly experience" and weighing "19 stone 13 lbs" (279 lbs), a stone being 14 lbs, at the beginning of his imprisonment but not upon his release. The author writes with a reporter's keen perception and a talented novelist's ability to engage and at times amuse the reader.