Samuel Pepys was the first Secretary to the Admiralty during the reign of Charles II, instrumental in developing the Royal Navy and witness to some of the most significant events of the Restoration period, including the Great Fire of London. His famous diary, which covers a period of some ten years, throws a frank and intimate light on a fascinating period, through the lens of a vigorous, intelligent and refreshingly candid and extrovert personality. This volume covers the third year of the diary.

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was common for discoveries in branches of science such as botany, astronomy and medicine to be described in book-length treatises in verse. By the end of the 19th century this mode of popularising science was falling from favour as the studies of science and the humanities diverged and study became more specialised.

This small selection of somewhat lighter-hearted verse written by distinguished scientists and mathematicians of the day includes poems by James Clerk Maxwell, William J. Macquorn Rankine and James Joseph Sylvester.

In a rundown farmhouse near isolated, rural Dunwich, a bizarre family conjures and nurtures an evil entity from another realm, with the purpose of destroying the world and delivering it to ancient gods to rule, and only an aged university librarian can stop them. The Dunwich Horror was first published in 1929 in Weird Tales.

The World of Sound consists of six lectures delivered before a juvenile audience at the Royal Institution, Christmas 1919. The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825, except several years during the Second World War. The lectures present scientific subjects to a general audience, including young people, in an informative and entertaining manner. Michael Faraday initiated the first Christmas Lecture series in 1825, at a time when organised education for young people was scarce.

This series of lectures is still interesting for its basic explanation of sound and h...

An early figure in the birth of poetry in industrial Manchester, Ann Hawkshaw published three collections and another was circulated privately. Her first collection. published in Manchester and London in 1842, begins with an epic poem, Dionysius the Areopagite. Based on the New Testament story of the conversion of Dionysius by St Paul, much of the poem centres on the consequences of Dionysius' conversion for his betrothed, Myra, and her sister, Corrina. The collection also includes two of Hawkshaw's most important works, The Past and The Future, and a number of shorter poems on themes of history, loss and faith.

James Allen (1864 - 1912) was a philosopher and a pioneer of New Thought movement. His works have formed the basis of much of the curriculum used today by many motivational and self-help groups. His first book, which published in 1901, was From Poverty to Power, subtitled The Realization of Prosperity and Peace. Allen described this book as "A Book for all those who are in search of better conditions, wider freedom, and increased usefulness." Orinigally ,the book consisted of two separate volumes, The Path To Prosperity (sometimes rendered as The Path of Prosperity) and The Way of Peace. Each volume was later published separately. This recording is of the second volume.

Per the author: "The book has one high ambition. It has tried to tell the sad story of the wilderness itself—to show, from the woodsman's view-point, the play of great forces which have been tearing down his home and turning it into the flesh and bone of cities." But this story is much more than that. It revolves around Silas Strong and his distaste for the modernization and destruction of his beloved forest surroundings, and how it pleases him to teach younger folk how to appreciate that which has been given us. He takes matters into his own hands, as only Silas Strong can do.
Addison Irving Bacheller was an American journalist and writer who founded the first modern newspa...

The Holy Bible in Modern English, commonly known as the Ferrar Fenton Bible, was one of the earliest translations of the Bible into "modern English" (i.e., English as spoken and written in the 19th and 20th centuries). Work on the translation was begun in 1853 by a London businessman named Ferrar Fenton (1832–1920). The complete Bible was first published in 1903, though parts were published as separate volumes during the preceding 11 years. Fenton spent approximately fifty years working on his translation, with his sole goal 'to study the Bible absolutely in its original languages, to ascertain what its writers actually said and thought'. Fenton had acquired a great learning and understa...

Mrs Armytage is a widowed landowner, spirited, independent and very much used to having her own way and exercising total dominance over her family. She is acutely aware of social distinctions, proud of her power and prestige, and stands on her dignity to the point of becoming cold, judgemental and aloof. Her character flaws bring her into conflict with her children when her son Arthur announces his choice of a wife who is very much below their rank, and much will happen before Mrs Armytage learns to repent her behaviour.

Mrs Catherine Gore was foremost among the writers of 'Silver Fork' or 'fashionable' novels, hugely popular in the early 1800s, which chronicle the romances and s...

While a bit outdated in many of the more complex descriptions of several of the phenomena described, this book is nonetheless still fun and relevant for a person interested in basic chemistry or physics tricks, and the devices built in the book can be easily replicated with more modern materials. The book is split up into many little experiments, tricks, with an explanation on how it works, what's happening, and how to reproduce the effects at home.