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American author, critic, newspaper man, and iconoclast, H. L. Mencken maintained that women are smarter than men and cited numerous examples of the female's overwhelming skill and cunning to support his position. Originally published in 1922, this book considers topics that remain of vital interest to today's readers, including monogamy and polygamy, prostitution, the double standard, sexual harassment, and declining birth and marriage rates. Written...
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First published in 1799, Charles Brockden Brown's "Edgar Huntly, Or Memoirs of a Sleep Walker" is the story of its title character, who upon learning of the death of the brother of his friend and love interest, Mary Waldegrave, visits where he died in the woods in rural Pennsylvania. There he discovers a man, Clithero, a servant from a nearby farm, suspiciously lurking about near the scene of Waldegrave's murder. Suspecting Clithero, Edgar begins...
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In Spoon River Anthology, the American poet Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950) created a series of compelling free-verse monologues in which former citizens of a mythical Midwestern town speak touchingly from the grave of the thwarted hopes and dream of their lives. First published in book form in 1915, the Anthology was the crowning achievement of Masters' career as a poet, and a work that would become a landmark of 20th-century American literature....
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This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. American life comes under the scrutiny of Mark Twain's wit in this delightful collection of short stories. Here, he comments on politics, education, the media, religion, and literature. The true subject of Twain's satire and burlesque is that strangest of all animals, the human being. In his novels, travel narratives, stories, essays, and sketches, Twain exposes such...
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Beginning with the first prose of the Virginia settlers-who were writing at the same time as Shakespeare-this sweeping 1912 study traces the development of American literature from the colonial period and the revolution, through the nineteenth century. Cairns focuses on the influence of the abolitionists and transcendentalists, as well as that of the Southern, Western, New York, and Pennsylvania schools.
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Francophile Edith Wharton is buried in Versailles. One of the few foreign front-line correspondents in France during World War I, she penned this collection of articles to orient American soldiers headed to the country. Articles such as "First Impressions," "Intellectual Honesty," "Taste," "Continuity," and "The New Frenchwoman" reveal the author's love of her adopted land.
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This 1913 collection of literature-related travel pieces set in England does not blaze new trails but rather charms by the author's distinctive personality and voice. "It is the human, definite, personal quality in these 'memories' of Mr. Grant's that one especially enjoys," wrote a reviewer in the Dial. Included are "Wheathampstead and Charles Lamb," "In England's Pennsylvania," "In Shakespeare's Arden," and "A Visit to Cowper's Birthplace."
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In addition to the central article on the works of Victorian novelist and poet George Meredith, this 1921 collection of twelve essays covers The Odyssey, Aristophanes, Cicero, Medea, Ibsen, John Henry Newman, J. D. Beresford, and literature versus science. It also includes "The Smoke Nuisance," a broadside against the growing popularity of tobacco.
9) Yet Again
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This 1909 collection of humorous sketches includes "The Fire," "Seeing People Off," "A Club in Ruins," "A Study in Dejection," "A Pathetic Imposture," "The Decline of the Graces," "Whistler's Writing," "A Morris for May-Day," "The House of Commons Manner," "The Naming of Streets," "On Shakespeare's Birthday," "A Home-Coming," and "The Humour of the Public."
10) Pagan Papers
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This 1893 collection of eighteen pieces is Grahame's first book. Rather than fantasies, it contains genial, rambling essays on such subjects as "The Romance of the Road," "The Rural Pan," "The White Poppy," "The Fairy Wicket," and "The Lost Centaur." Some of the essays prefigure his fictions, especially his masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows.
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As the Great War raged along in 1916, Wells turned his prophetic eye towards the future. Topics considered include the law, the media, the new map of Europe, the roles of the United States, Russia, and France, the outlook for Germany, the "white man's burden," and the prospects for European socialism.
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This 1904 volume is not only a meticulously researched history of book collecting but a guide for aspiring and more experienced collectors. Hazlitt discusses collectors of every walk of life, including Reverend Thomas Corser, The Chevalier D'Eon, Richard Heber, the Duke of Roxburghe, Thomas Grenville, George Daniel, Lord Spencer, and Henry Huth.
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Not exclusively for bibliophiles, this kaleidoscopic 1896 gathering of essays and sketches on books, book-collecting, and literature includes "The Philosophy of Rarity," "A Gascon Tragedy (14th Century)," "A Shelf of Old Story Books," "The Pirates' Paradise (1740)," "A Medley of Memoirs," "With Rabelais at Rome (1536)," and "The Wit of History."
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This 1914 volume, "a simple record of happy and memorable hours spent in the company of favourite books, and a tribute of gratitude to their authors," contains the chapters "The Birth of a Book-Lover," "In Green Pastures," "Beside Still Waters," "In a Brown Study," and "The Peter Pan of Bookland," among others.
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This 1896 book was assembled for a private printing when it was discovered that the author, a distinguished critic and novelist, had written nine anonymous pieces for the English newspaper. Here are "English Literature," "Browning," "Wordsworth," "Amiel's 'Journal Intime," "Robert Elsmere," "Their Majesties' Servants," "Ferdinand Fabre," and two more.
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Long before Jerry Seinfeld's witty observations about "nothing," Robert Benchley was finding humor in daily life. In this collection of his essays, originally published in 1922, Benchley offers his wry insights into the seemingly mundane with essays such as "How to Watch a Chess Match," "Do Insects Think?" and "Reading the Funnies Aloud."
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In this book's preface, Joseph Shipley explains, "To know the origin of words is to know how men think." This lively, fascinating, and entertaining book is the result of his efforts-Shipley traces the derivations of hundreds of common English words, from the adventurous tales of their beginnings to their then-current meanings.
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Collected here are seven engaging essays by Austin Dobson, the highly esteemed English writer and poet. Austin was notable for his wide-ranging interests, and this collection of portraits of eighteenth-century figures reflects his expansive studies, making the volume ideal reading for anyone passionate about English history and literature: essays include "Edwards's Canons of Criticism," "An Eighteenth-Century Hippocrates," "'Hermes' Harris," "The...
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Thoreau's friend Ralph Waldo Emerson gathered these letters and poems in 1865. The letters range in subject matter from love, sex, and marriage, to religion, philosophy, and everyday life. Thoreau's correspondents include his mother, his sisters Helen and Sophia, and Emerson himself.
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