Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones) was a legendary labor organizer. She was a founding member of the International Workers of the World (the IWW, or the Wobblies), and was active in the United Mine Workers and the Socialist Party of America.

He was a painter, a poet, a novelist. He lived during the Hungarian revolution and his love of freedom meant his life was often in peril. She was his first love, this girl with the eyes like the sea. She was at heart noble, good and loving. What an excellent lady might have been made out of this woman, if she had only met with a husband who, in the most ordinary acceptance of the word, had been a good fellow, as is really the case with about nine men out of every ten. But she always managed to draw the unlucky tenth out of the urn of destiny. And so she spurned his true love in favor of a high-flying dandy. He went on to pursue a life of politics and she to follow her capricious heart. Bu...

When I first started reading this book, I thought it to be a historical romance novel. As I read further, I pondered whether it might be a sea-faring story. Reading still further, I determined it to be an adventure story. Alas, it is all three. To Have And To Hold, written by Mary Johnston was the bestselling novel of 1900. The story takes place in colonial Jamestown during the 1600’s. Captain Ralph Percy, an English soldier turned Virginian explorer buys a wife - little knowing that she is the escaping ward of King James I. Jocelyn is fleeing a forced marriage to the villain of our story, Lord Carnal. Her would-be suitor arrives in Jamestown to take his bride, unknowing that she is alrea...

In This volume the Little Colonel returns to us like an old friend, but with added grace and charm. She is not, however, the central figure of the story, that place being taken by the “two little knights,” Malcolm and Keith, little Southern aristocrats, whose chivalrous natures lead them through a series of interesting adventures.

The scene of this story is laid in Kentucky. Its heroine is a small girl, who is known as the Little Colonel, on account of her fancied resemblance to an old-school Southern gentleman, whose fine estate and old family are famous in the region. (Introduction taken from original book.)

This is the story of Joyce, an American girl who has been sent abroad to France to study, and of her adventures in France, - the wonderful house with the gate of The Giant Scissors, Jules, her little playmate, Sister Denis, the cruel Brossard, and her dear Aunt Kate.

In this enchanting fable (subtitled The Choice of Life), Rasselas and his retinue burrow their way out of the totalitarian paradise of the Happy Valley in search of that triad of eighteenth-century aspiration – life, liberty and happiness.
According to that quirky authority, James Boswell, Johnson penned his only work of prose fiction in a handful of days to cover the cost of his mother’s funeral. The stylistic elegance of the book and its wide-ranging philosophical concerns give no hint of haste or superficiality.
Among other still burning issues Johnson’s characters pursue questions of education, colonialism, the nature of the soul and even climate alteration.
John...

The published dictionary was a huge book: with pages nearly 1½ feet tall and 20 inches wide, it contained 42,773 words; it also sold for the huge price of £4/10s. ($400?). It would be years before “Johnson’s Dictionary”, as it came to be known, would ever turn a profit; authors’ royalities being unknown at that time, Johnson, once his contract to deliver the book was fulfilled, received no further monies connected to the book.

Johnson, once again a freelance writer, albeit now a famous one, faced a grim hand-to-mouth existence; however, in July 1762 the twenty-four year old King George III granted Johnson an annual pension of £300. While not making Johnson rich, it allowed him a ...

A book of simple receipts for little folk with important cooking rules in rhyme together with handy lists of the materials and utensils needed for the preparation of each dish.

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates is a 1724 book containing biographies of contemporary pirates. It's author uses the name Captain Charles Johnson, generally considered a pseudonym. The real identity of the author was thought by some scholars to be Daniel Defoe, although this has since been disputed. The publisher Nathaniel Mist or somebody working for him are other suggested authors. In the first volume, "Johnson" sticks fairly close to the available sources, though he embellishes the stories somewhat. Nevertheless, the book was influential in shaping popular notions of piracy and provided the standard account of the lives of many individuals st...