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In ancient Rome, Seneca the Younger rose to power as a politician and statesman during the middle of his life. After being exiled by Emperor Caligula, he was finally welcomed back to Rome as Nero's minister. He gained significant wealth, though Seneca often despised his own standing because of his personal philosophy. At the end of his life, Seneca wrote a number of letters to the Roman governor of Sicily. From this collection of letters comes "Letters...
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During the 1800's in America, the rise of technology allowed people to have more possessions than ever before, and at a cheaper cost. However, a group known as the Transcendentalists believed that possessions created vanity. Instead, they valued the individual's relationship with divinity. One of the movements most famous members, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote prolifically about his beliefs and experiences, and many of those writings have been chronicled...
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"My Inventions" is a candid and illuminating autobiography of Nikola Tesla, one of the most important technological innovators of the modern industrial age. Famous for the radio, robotics, and wireless energy, Tesla quickly gained international notoriety for his pioneering inventions as much for his eccentric life. Perhaps no one in his day more thoroughly embodied the archetype of the "mad scientist". This firsthand account reveals the fascinating...
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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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First published in 1900, "The Strenuous Life" is a collection of essays and speeches by American President Theodore Roosevelt. The title comes from his famous 1899 speech, also called "The Strenuous Life", which is included in this collection. In this well-known address, Roosevelt argues that the application of great effort in all our work and the striving to overcome hardship were ideal characteristics to be embraced by Americans for the betterment...
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Renowned steel magnate and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, immigrated to America from Scotland as a boy in 1848, and at the age of thirteen began his first job as a bobbin boy, earning $1.20 a week. By the 1870s, the successful entrepreneur had founded the Carnegie Steel Company, later U.S. Steel, which would eventually establish Carnegie as the second wealthiest man in history, after John D. Rockefeller. He published "The Gospel of Wealth" in 1889...
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This collection of the first series of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson collects some of the classic thoughts of this important American and leader of the Transcendentalist movement. Contained in this volume are the following essays: History, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over-Soul, Circles, Intellect, and Art.
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Born on June 28, 1712, the Genevan philosopher, novelist and essayist Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most prominent and definitive minds of the Enlightenment. Self-taught, Rousseau dabbled in many fields, keeping journals of his interests in science, mathematics, music, astronomy, botany, music, literature, and philosophy. He achieved sudden success and subsequent fame with his "A Discourse on the Arts and Sciences", a work that cemented his...
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With the goal of describing man with complete frankness and using himself as his most frequent example, Michel de Montaigne first published his "Essays" in 1580. This collection of 107 chapters encompasses a wide variety of subjects, originally inspired by his study of Latin classics, and later by the lives of the leading figures of his time. Michel de Montaigne saw the most basic elements of man as variety and unpredictability, and this idea permeates...
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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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American lawyer and the sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln is widely regarded as the most important political figures in all of American History. No more contentious political fight has ever existed in American History than the fight over slavery, a fight, which began immediately following the American Revolution and led to America's bloodiest conflict, the American Civil War, and whose legacy of injustice persists until this...
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Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is historically recognized as the first woman to make a living through writing; her plays, novels, poems and pamphlets have met with fresh notoriety since the 20th Century. Her work was particularly significant to a group of contemporary writers known as The Female Wits, as well as to later feminist writers like Virginia Woolf. Stories of comedy and intrigue, complete with and masks, mistaken identities, visual deceptions, and...
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Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is historically recognized as the first woman to make a living through writing; her plays, novels, poems and pamphlets have met with fresh notoriety since the 20th century. Her work was particularly significant to a group of contemporary writers known as The Female Wits, as well as to later feminist writers like Virginia Woolf. Stories of comedy and intrigue, complete with masks, mistaken identities, visual deceptions, and complicated...
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American writer, philosopher, publisher, and artist, Elbert Hubbard, founded the Roycroft Arts and Crafts community in East Aurora, New York. Hubbard set up a small printing shop next to his family home, where he began printing "The Philistine" magazine. The publication, quite popular in its time, was filled with Hubbard's sardonic wit, satire and often controversial commentary. An 1899 edition of the magazine included "A Message to Garcia", an inspirational...
15) Religio Medici
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Sir Thomas Browne was a 17th century author who wrote on a wide variety of subjects including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric. He is best known for his work entitled "Religio Medici", or "The Religion of a Doctor", which is Browne's own spiritual testament and an early example of a psychological self-portrait. Published in 1643, shortly after the author had qualified himself to practice medicine, "Religio Medici" became a best-seller...
17) Essays and Poems
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During the 1800s in America, the rise of industrialization reduced the cost of goods allowing people to have more possessions than ever before. However, a group known as the Transcendentalists believed that possessions created vanity. Instead, they valued the individual's relationship with divinity. One of the movement's most famous members, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote prolifically about his beliefs and experiences. A representative selection of his...
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Thomas De Quincey, an English essayist during the turn of the nineteenth century, began life as a fairly sickly child, and would spend much of his life in the grips of one illness or another. Through a series of misguided attempts at getting an education, De Quincey dropped out of college and instead became a vagrant. The youth barely had enough food to eat and resorted to begging in order to survive. These years served as a depressing foundation...
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"The Essential Tales and Poems" is a large, yet thorough, collection of the poems and stories written by horror master Edgar Allen Poe. Admirers will be happy to see Poe's most famous works present in the collection: "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Cask of Amontillado." These works have struck fear in audiences for generations, solidifying Poe's place in the American literature canon. Fans...
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