Essay/Short nonfiction audiobooks page 14

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain. It was also published as “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog.” In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, about the gambler Jim Smiley. Upon discovering a French translation of this story, Twain re-translated the story, word for word and keeping the French grammar structure, back into English. He then published all three versions under the title “The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, and Then Clawed Back Into A Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremu...

An Essay on Criticism was the first major poem written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688-1744). However, despite the title, the poem is not as much an original analysis as it is a compilation of Pope’s various literary opinions. A reading of the poem makes it clear that he is addressing not so much the ingenuous reader as the intending writer. It is written in a type of rhyming verse called heroic couplets.

This is a collection of newspaper articles written by Samuel Clemens, for various newspapers, between 1862 and 1881. After Feb 3rd 1863, he began using the pen name Mark Twain. This compilation is the work of Project Gutenberg and contains articles from TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE, THE SAN FRANCISCO DAILY MORNING CALL, THE SACRAMENTO DAILY UNION, DAILY HAWAIIAN HERALD, ALTA CALIFORNIA, THE CHICAGO REPUBLICAN, and THE GALAXY. (Introduction by John Greenman)

A collection of wry looks at literature, education, and other social phenomena by Canadian humourist and economics professor, Stephen Leacock.

A collection of short nonfiction works in the public domain. The selections included in this collection were independently chosen by the readers and include speeches and essays on history, science, politics, nature, travel, psychology and love.

"In the course of time a very considerable public feeling was aroused in the United States and Canada over this state of affairs. The lack of reciprocity in it seemed unfair. It was felt (or at least I felt) that the time had come when some one ought to go over and take some impressions off England. The choice of such a person (my choice) fell upon myself. By an arrangement with the Geographical Society of America, acting in conjunction with the Royal Geographical Society of England (to both of whom I communicated my proposal), I went at my own expense."

And from thence follow the impressions of Canadian political economist and humourist, Stephen Leacock, after a lecturing visit ...

Collection of 32 essays by American authors ranging from Benjamin Frannklin to Emerson to Whitman to Henry James to Theodore Roosevelt. On subjects from the gout to insects with a 24 hour life span to old bachelors to leaves of grass to the odes of Horace. It seems to be an attempt to show off the Americans as writers.

This is a collection of short pieces, poetry or prose, fiction and non-fiction, in several different languages. All chosen and recorded by Librivox volunteers. Brief description of the contributions: 01 Japanese - Natto Gassen by Kikuchi Kan (1888-1948) [1919] - Key words: prose, fiction, children, fermented soybeans 02 Japanese - Shikino e by Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) [1911] - Key words: prose, non-fiction, painting 03 Japanese - Carmen by Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927) [1926] - Key words: prose, fiction, Tokyo, theater 04 Japanese - Sanbikino Kogumasan by Murayama Kazuko (1903-1946) [1931] - Key words: prose, fiction, children, bears 05 Japanese - Nakunatta Ningyo by Ogawa Mimei (188...

Two short fragments: an unfinished and a lost play. A Florentine Tragedy, left in a taxi (not a handbag), is Wilde’s most successful attempt at tragedy – intense and domestic, with surprising depth of characterisation. It was adapted into an opera by the Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky in 1917. La Sainte Courtisane, or The Woman Covered in Jewels explores one of Wilde’s great idées fixes: the paradox of religious hedonism, pagan piety. Both plays, Wildean to their core, revel in the profound sadness that is the fruit of the conflict between fidelity and forbidden love. Written towards the end of his tragic life, these fragments give us a glimpse of a genius at his best: viscer...

Simply put, this is a book of 9 short vignettes each of which describes a different scenario which demonstrates the age old adage: 'where there's a will, there's a way'.