Classic Books

"The question "Does civilization civilize?" is a fine example of petitio principii, and decides itself in the affirmative; for civilization must needs do that from the doing of which it has its name. But it is not necessary to suppose that he who propounds is either unconscious of his lapse in logic or desirous of digging a pitfall for the feet of those who discuss; I take it he simply wishes to put the matter in an impressive way, and relies upon a certain degree of intelligence in the interpretation." -an excerpt

Lady Maud, the spirited young daughter of the Earl of Marshmoreton, is confined to her home, Belpher Castle in Hampshire, under aunt's orders because of an unfortunate infatuation. Enter our hero, George Bevan, an American who writes songs for musicals and is so smitten with Maud that he descends on Hampshire's rolling acres to see off his rival and claim her heart. Meanwhile, in the great Wodehousian tradition, the Earl of Marshmoreton just wants a quiet life pottering in his garden, supported by his portly butler Keggs and free from the demands of his bossy sister and his silly-ass son.

A Daughter of the Snows is Jack London's first novel. Set in the Yukon, it tells the story of Frona Welse, "a Stanford graduate and physical Valkyrie" who takes to the trail after upsetting her wealthy father's community by her forthright manner and befriending the town's prostitute.

The average home to-day has conveniences to meet the demands of comfortable living. The heating and lighting are good. In nearly every home may be found a living room where the family assembles for rest and recreation. Here they read, sew, chat, and discuss the news. Similar scenes occurred in the colonial days, but in quite a different room. The kitchen took the place of our modern living room. The life of the colonists centered in it, for in the kitchen was the fireplace, often the one source of heat in the whole house. Its warmth and cheer and its use as a place for cooking made it the heart of the home. Here it was that the family interests and activities were centered; all the family group collected here to share the joys and sorrows of life.

A Desert Drama: Being The Tragedy of The "Korosko"' is a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was first published in the year 1898. It narrated the adventures and thrill of a group of europeans on a trip to African deserts and their adbuction by an army of Dervish militants. What happens next, read!

Pyetushkov is the work of a young man of twenty-nine, and its lively, unstrained realism is so bold, intimate, and delicate as to contradict the flattering compliment that the French have paid to one another—that Turgenev had need to dress his art by the aid of French mirrors. Although Pyetushkov shows us, by a certain open naïveté of style, that a youthful hand is at work, it is the hand of a young master, carrying out the realism of the ‘forties’—that of Gogol, Balzac, and Dickens—straightway, with finer point, to find a perfect equilibrium free from any bias or caricature. The whole strength and essence of the realistic method has been developed in Pyetushkov to its just limits. The Russians are instinctive realists, and carry the warmth of life into their pages, which warmth the French seem to lose in clarifying their impressions and crystallising them in art. Pyetushkov is not exquisite: it is irresistible. Note how the reader is transported bodily into Pyetushkov’s stuffy room, and how the major fairly boils out of the two pages he lives in! (pp. 301, 302). That is realism if you like. A woman will see the point of Pyetushkov very quickly. Onisim and Vassilissa and the aunt walk and chatter around the stupid Pyetushkov, and glance at him significantly in a manner that reveals everything about these people’s world. All the servants who appear in the tales in this volume are hit off so marvellously that one sees the lower-class world, which is such a mystery to certain refined minds, has no secrets for Turgenev.

he present publication may be considered as the foundation-stone of the Historical and Literary portion of the Philological Society’s proposed English Dictionary. Its appearance in a separate form has been necessitated by the nature of the scheme, on which that work is being constructed. Without entering into details, which will be found in the Society’s published Prospectus, it will be sufficient for the present purpose to mention, that the raw material of the Dictionary, the words and authorities, are being brought together by a number of independent collectors, for whom it is consequently necessary to provide some common standard of comparison, whereby each may ascertain what he is to extract, and what to reject, from the author, or work, he has undertaken.

The better to illustrate how, in Hindoo mythology, the ideas of a beautiful woman, the Moon, and the Sea, dissolve and disappear into one another, I have placed on the fly-leaf of this edition a single stanza, drawn from another part of my MS., which characteristically exemplifies that dissolving view: subjoining here, for the benefit of the uninitiated, a literal translation:

First published in the year 1879, the present book 'A Doll's House: A Play' is a Norwegian play by Henrik Ibsen. This three act play is set in a Norwegian town circa 1879. The play is significant for the way it deals with the fate of a married woman, who at the time in Norway lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male dominated world. It aroused a great sensation at the time, and caused a “storm of outraged controversy” that went beyond the theatre to the world newspapers and society.

I hope for this book that it may come into the hands of those that were kind to my others and that it may not disappoint them. To the Editor of the Saturday Review my thanks are due for permission to republish here those of the following tales which have appeared in his columns, and, more than that, for the opportunity afforded me by his review of reaching a wider public than my books have attained to yet.

You are now old enough to know- good from evil; you are old enough to understand what sin means; you know that when you tell a lie, or take what is not your own, you commit a sin; but do you know that sin means disobedience to God's laws of every kind?

In 1893 the PIONEEE sums up Mr. Grierson's facts regarding the various sections of the population in Gaya: "Briefly, it is that all the persons of the labouring classes, and 10 per cent of the cultivating and artisan classes, or 45 per cent of the total population, are insufficiently clothed, or insufficiently fed, or both. In Gaya district this would give about a million persons without sufficient means of support. If we assume that the circumstances of Gaya are not exceptional — and there is no reason for thinking otherwise — it follows that nearly 100,000,000 of people in British India are living in extreme poverty."

This book is very useful for children and is beneficial in the development of children because the best category of pictures and poetry is included in the books. And the curriculum of these books has been given in a way that helps in the development of children.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

First published in the year 1924, famous English writer James Oliver Curwood's fictional novel 'A Gentleman of Courage' is a romantic and adventurous novel set in 1890s.

Marguerite St. Juste was Irish on her mother's side, who was born of the Desmonds of Desmondstown in the County Kerry. Marguerite's father was a French Comte, whose grandfather had been one of the victims of the guillotine. Little Marguerite lived with an uncle, who was really only that relation by marriage; his name was the Reverend John Mansfield. He had a large living in a large town about fifty miles from London, and he adopted Marguerite shortly after the death of her parents. This tragedy happened when she was very young, almost a baby. She did not in the least remember her father, whose dancing black eyes and merry ways had endeared him to all who knew him. Nor did she recall a single fact with regard to her mother—one of those famous Desmonds, who had joined the rebels in the great insurrection of '97, and whose people still lived and prospered and were gay and merry of the merry on their somewhat tattered and worn-out country estate.