Showing results by author "Lina A" in All Categories

Rodin has pronounced Rilke's essay the supreme interpretation of his work. (From the translators’ Preface)Auguste Rodin, 1840-1917, was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past. He was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Paris's foremost school of art. Sculpturally, Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, deeply pocketed surface in clay. … Rodin… modeled the human ...

Grant Allen was an anthropologist, scientific writer, novelist and poet, though the biographer and writer Frank Harris has said of him that "He could be described with more 'ists' than anyone else I ever saw. He was an atheist and pacifist and socialist, a botanist and zoologist and optimist, a chemist and physicist, a scientist of scientists, a monist, meliorist and hedonist…". As a novelist, he is noted as a pioneer in both the detective and science fiction genres. He was born in Canada but spent the latter part of his life in England. "Biographies of Working Men" is a volume containing ...

Elizabeth Banks was an American journalist and author. She grew up in Wisconsin, then lived in England the last forty years of her life. She became a regular contributor to English publications such as The Daily News, Punch, St James' Gazette, and London Illustrated. She created a sensation by recording her observations on the plight of the lower classes, which she researched posing as a housemaid, street sweeper, and Covent Garden flower girl. Her later journalistic writings promoted women's right to vote and denounced prison conditions for jailed suffragettes. This memoir was written about ...

Nominally an autobiography, Biographia Literaria ranges widely across the realms of philosophy, poetry and memoir, in Coleridge's trademark discursive style, providing a living glimpse of the great talker, the man who could hold his contemporaries in thrall for hours with his dazzling conversation, and who was famously described as the last man "to have read everything". Summary by Nicole Lee.

Alexander Hamilton was a significant figure in the political and economic development of the early United States. He served in the American Revolutionary War and became an aide to General George Washington. He was one of the authors (along with John Jay and James Madison) of a series of essays know as The Federalist Papers, which were written in support of the ratification of the proposed Constitution. Scholars and others still refer to these essays to this day for interpretation of the Constitution. As the first Secretary of the Treasury in George Washington’s Cabinet, Hamilton was a ...

Fanny relates the experiences of a 19th century missionary as she and her young husband proselytize throughout Europe in search of converts to the new Mormon faith. Her religious zeal is sorely tested upon receipt of news from America revealing that their religion has adopted the practice of polygamy as the means to exaltation. The couple is summoned to Utah only to find themselves firmly ensconced in Brigham Young's inner circle and called upon to practice plural marriage or risk a fall from family, friends, and faith. - Summary by Spiffycat

Robert Sherard was Oscar Wilde's friend of 20 years and first biographer. The Life of Oscar Wilde was the second of his four biographies of the Irish playwright and wit. - Summary by Rob Board

There is, so far as I have been able to ascertain, no biography of Augustus Caesar - a most curious fact when one considers the extraordinary success of his career and the enormous importance of the work which he accomplished. Perhaps the reason of this apparent neglect may be found in the circumstance that his character is one of the most puzzling of antiquity. In this volume I have attempted to give a clear account of what Augustus achieved in the establishment of the Roman Empire, and at the same time to reveal the man, in so far as he reveals himself by his actions. - Summary Adapted from ...

This is a young person's biography of Abigail Adams that will appeal to readers of all ages. In the author's own words, "I am not writing a history; far from it. I am merely throwing on the screen, in the fashion of today, a few scenes to make a background for my little pen-picture-play. " - Summary by Ciufi Galeazzi

Vesalius (born in Brussels, 1514-1564) is one of the foundation stones of modern medicine. Forsaking the study of anatomy by reading the ancients, he instead dissected bodies and drew detailed illustrations of his observations. He was enormously influential in the development of modern medicine. This 1910 biography opens up his life admirably. The printed book contains many illustrations taken from his works. The listener will want to be aware that modern historians of medicine are much more positive about the contributions of medieval Arabic medical teachers than the author of this book. - ...

This book presents a brief bio and a summary of important ideas & events in the lives of 23 great philosophers from ancient times through the 19th century. The book focuses on freethinkers, who are known to say things which upset those in power, Several of these men paid for their beliefs with their lives; many others were persecuted and imprisoned for saying what they believed. (Summary by Ted Delorme) Prooflisteners: silverquill and lubee930

I met the ex-pickpocket and burglar whose autobiography follows soon after his release from a third term in the penitentiary. For several weeks I was not particularly interested in him. He was full of a desire to publish in the newspapers an exposé of conditions obtaining in two of our state institutions, his motive seeming partly revenge and partly a very genuine feeling that he had come in contact with a systematic crime against humanity. But as I continued to see more of him, and learned much about his life, my interest grew; for I soon perceived that he not only had led a typical thief's ...

Part 1 lays out the framework for Positivism as originated in France by Auguste Comte in his Cours de Philosophie Positive. Mill examines the tenets of Comte's movement and alerts us to defects. Part 2 concerns all Comte's writings except the Cours de Philosophie Positive. During Comte's later years he gave up reading newspapers and periodicals to keep his mind pure for higher study. He also became enamored of a certain woman who changed his view of life. Comte turned his philosophy into a religion, with morality the supreme guide. Mill finds that Comte learned to despise science and the ...

The Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, is a work of enormous proportions. Setting out with the simple goal of offering "American households a mass of good reading", the editors drew from literature of all times and all kinds what they considered the best pieces of human writing, and compiled an ambitious collection of 45 volumes (with a 46th being an index-guide). Besides the selection and translation of a huge number of poems, letters, short stories and sections of books, the collection offers, before each chapter, a short essay about the author or subject in question...

Mr. Bensington and Professor Redwood have invented a substance that causes living things to grow - and grow - and grow! As their experiments progress, the substance quickly gets out of control and the fun begins as insects and plants receive the benefit of the Food of the Gods. Surely nobody would dream of feeding such a thing to a human child… would they?In this little-known science fiction satire, Wells takes potshots at every member of society: scientists, ministers, charitable heiresses, revolutionaries, and everyone in between. Yet in the end, Wells shows his faith both in humanity and ...

"The Lark" has all the charm and freshness which have made Miss Nesbit's former novels so justly popular, and yet the story ts entirely new and original. Two girls, Jane and Lucilla, are led by Jane's guardian to entertain high hopes. The fortune, however, which Jane was to have inherited, has been lost by unlucky speculations, and the two girls have to set about earning their own livings. They experience many adventures and ups and downs of fortune before they meet with the two men who ensure their happiness and prosperity. A delightful story, well worth reading. - Summary by (from 1922 ...

Mark Ashburn is a young teacher at St. Peter's Public School for boys, although he isn't particularly fond of boys. His dream is to make his name in the literary world but mediocrity and rejection meet him at every turn. Dejected, he meets up with Vincent, an old friend, who is about to travel to his father's plantation in Ceylon and asks a favor of Mark. Mark makes a rash promise to help, never suspecting anything would ever be required of him. Backed into a corner, he makes a decision that affects his and others' lives forever.

New York-born John Kendrick Bangs was associate editor and then editor of Life and Harper magazines, eventually finding his way into the Humour department. Here he began to write his own satire and humour. Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others is a delightfully humourous collection of short tales relating encounters with ghosts. (Summary by Cathy Barratt)

Jim, an axe-man for a sawmill, who is a hard-knuckled, two-fisted fighting man when he has to be, but is shy around women, longs to find a wife and settle down. Two women, one a mercenary widow of the country town, the other a classy city girl, both set their caps for Jim. Will true love triumph? Will Jim's dog ever get his dinner? Will Jim ever get his tongue untied? These and other questions are answered in this story in rhyme. - Summary by Son of the Exiles

The Enchanted Typewriter is a collection of short stories by the American author John Kendrick Bangs, written in 1899 in the style that has become known as Bangsian fantasy. Bangs attributes many of the stories to the late (and invisible) James Boswell, who has become an editor for a newspaper in Hades, and who communicates with the author by means of an old typewriter. The fantasy stories in this book are part of the author's Hades series, named for the stories' setting. (Summary by Wikipedia)