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The Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe, is an English Protestant account of the persecutions of Protestants, many of whom had died for their beliefs within the decade immediately preceding its first publication. It was first published by John Day, in 1563. Lavishly illustrated with many woodcuts, it was the largest publishing project undertaken in Britain up to that time. Commonly known as, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, the work's full title begins with Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church. There were many subsequent editions, by Day, and by other editors down through the years. Foxe's original work was enormous (the second edition filling two heavy folio volumes with a total of 2,300 pages, estimated to be twice as long as Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This edition is much abridged from Foxe's original. This book was first published shortly after the death of Queen Mary. During Mary's reign, common people of Protestent Christian faith were publicly burned at the stake in an attempt to eliminate dissension from Catholic doctrines. Foxe's account of Mary's reign and its m...

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Religion, History

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Excerpt: The opening of the eyes of Mrs Chick Miss Tox, all unconscious of any such rare appearances in connection with Mr. Dombey?s house, as scaffoldings and ladders, and men with their heads tied up in pocket-handkerchiefs, glaring in at the windows like flying genii or strange birds,--having breakfasted one morning at about this eventful period of time, on her customary viands; to wit, one French roll rasped, one egg new laid (or warranted to be), and one little pot of tea, wherein was infused one little silver scoopful of that herb on behalf of Miss Tox, and one little silver scoopful on behalf of the teapot--a flight of fancy in which good housekeepers delight; went upstairs to set forth the bird waltz on the harpsichord, to water and arrange the plants, to dust the nick-nacks, and, according to her daily custom, to make her little drawing-room the garland of Princess?s Place....

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Upton Sinclair, born in 1878 was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author. He wrote over 90 books in many genres. Best known for his muckraking novel, /the-jungle-by-upton-sinclair/ The Jungle, Sinclair also wrote adventure fiction. Many of these works were written under the pseudonym, Ensign Clark Fitch, U.S.N. A Prisoner of Morrow, published in 1898 when Sinclair was but 20 years old, is one of these efforts. The period for this work is the ten-week Spanish–American War which occurred in 1898. Revolts against Spanish rule had been prevalent for decades in Cuba and were closely watched by Americans. The main issue of the war was Cuban independence from Spain. The war was notable for a series of one-sided American naval and military victories and led to the downfall of Spain as a colonial power. Clif Faraday, a naval cadet, is the main character in this novel. Stationed on a gunboat off the Cuban island as part of the U. S. naval blockade, Clif survives a series of confrontations at sea and treacheries on land. He is captured while on the island during a mission and lands in a Cuban prison called Morro, renowned for its cru...

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War stories, Sea stories, Adventure, Historical Fiction

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Excerpt: The Tutor, Karl Ivanitch On the 12th of August, 18-- (just three days after my tenth birthday, when I had been given such wonderful presents), I was awakened at seven o?clock in the morning by Karl Ivanitch slapping the wall close to my head with a fly-flap made of sugar paper and a stick. He did this so roughly that he hit the image of my patron saint suspended to the oaken back of my bed, and the dead fly fell down on my curls....

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Jane Merrick is a wealthy, elderly, difficult invalid woman who is preparing for her approaching death. In her youth, she inherited her money and estate from her fiancé, Thomas Bradley, who died before their wedding took place. With no children of her own, she calls for her three teenaged nieces to visit her, so she can decide who will inherit her estate. They are Louise Merrick, Elizabeth De Graf, and Patsy Doyle, children of Jane's younger brother and sisters. Each of the three cousins is a different type....

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Fiction, Teen/Young adult

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The life and adventures of Honorable William F. Cody--Buffalo Bill--as told by himself, make up a narrative which reads more like romance than reality, and which in many respects will prove a valuable contribution to the records of our Western frontier history. While no literary excellence is claimed for the narrative, it has the greater merit of being truthful, and is verified in such a manner that no one can doubt its veracity. The frequent reference to such military men as Generals Sheridan, Carr, Merritt, Crook, Terry, Colonel Royal, and other officers under whom Mr. Cody served as scout and guide at different times and in various sections of the frontier, during the numerous Indian campaigns of the last ten or twelve years, affords ample proof of his genuineness as a thoroughbred scout. (Summary by the publisher)...

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Biography

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Three years after the events that took place in The Lost World ( /the-lost-world-by-sir-arthur-conan-doyle/ ), Professor Challenger urgently summons his fellow explorers (Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and reporter E.D. Malone) to a meeting. Oddly, he requires each to bring an oxygen cylinder with him. What he soon informs them is that from astronomical data and just-received telegraphs of strange accidents on the other side of the world, he has deduced that the Earth is starting to move through a region of space containing something poisonous to humankind. Shutting themselves tightly up in Challenger's house, they start to consider what may be done. But as their countrymen start to drop, will their oxygen last long enough to determine and implement a solution? (Summary by Mark Smith)...

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Adventure, Science fiction, Mystery

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This exciting historical adventure depicts the last stand of the Gordons - God's outlaws - fighting for their Catholic Faith in the early days of the Protestant Revolution in seventeenth-century Scotland. Written for the children but enjoyed by young and old alike, this intriguing novel is filled with courageous heroes, cowardly villains, secrets and even secret passages! (Summary by Maria Therese)...

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Adventure, Fiction, Children

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Arthur Mervyn is the story of a young man from the country who arrives in a city stricken with Yellow Fever. He soon comes down with the illness and is rescued by a kindly doctor. Arthur tells the doctor and his wife the story of his life, thereby gaining the doctor’s confidence and good will. However, others familiar with Arthur tell another tale, and the doctor’s as well as the reader’s confidence in Arthur is shaken. Brown, who himself contracted Yellow Fever during an outbreak in New York City, vividly describes the horrors of the disease and its effects on an early American city. (Summary by Margaret)...

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Fiction

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In this sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is playing with her kittens — a black kitten and a white kitten, the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in the first book — when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection... (summary from wikipedia)...

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Adventure, Children, Fantasy, Humor, Teen/Young adult

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A six year-old girl named Mary spends Christmas vacation with her parents in the Arizona desert of 1901 or thereabouts. ( Summary by BellonaTimes )

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Adventure, Children, Nature

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Captain Blood is an adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1922. It concerns the sharp-witted Dr. Peter Blood, an Irish physician, who is convicted of treason in the aftermath of the Monmouth rebellion in 1685, and enslaved on the Caribbean island of Barbados. He escapes and becomes a pirate. [wikipedia] Captain Blood was the basis for the Academy Award-nominated swashbuckling film that rocketed Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland to stardom in Hollywood. The fast-paced historical fiction of Rafael Sabatini is often compared with that of Robert Louis Stevenson and Alexandre Dumas. [DSayers]...

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Adventure

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volunteers bring you 10 recordings of An Apology for Sadness by Anne Lynch Botta. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 13, 2011. Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta was an American poet, writer, teacher and socialite whose home was the central gathering place of the literary elite of her era. At Mrs. Botta's receptions every Saturday night, attendees would find the most well-known writers, actors and artists, such as Poe, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, Horace Greeley, Richard Henry Stoddard, Andrew Carnegie, Mary Mapes Dodge, Julia Ward Howe, Charles Butler, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Delia Bacon, Grace Greenwood, Bayard Taylor, William Cullen Bryant, Helen Hunt Jackson, actress Fanny Kemble, Daniel Webster, and many more. Her friend Kate Sanborn started her literary lecturing career at these receptions. Said a Boston writer: It was not so much what Mrs. Botta did for literature with her own pen, as what she helped others to do, that will make her name a part of the literary history of the country. (summary from Wikipedia)...

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Romance, Poetry

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In an era before the advent of electric lights, telephones or motor vehicles, there exists a small cluster of aristocratic old revolutionary stock families that rule New York's social life. Under the rules of this society, being things is better than doing things and reputation and outward appearances come at the exclusion of everything else. In this Gilded Age, when America’s expansion and increased industrialism produce a group of newly wealthy robber barons and financiers, the patient, time-honored values of the old ruling class, and century, are giving way to the expediencies of the new. Caught at this cusp, a triangle of lovers, who must choose between the expectations of family and society, and the deepest yearnings of the heart. Newly engaged couple, Newland Archer, a young lawyer, and May Welland, a society debutante, are part of the old world, where the right people follow the correct rules and marry into acceptable families. The arrival from Europe of May’s cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, complicates their union, as Ellen’s mysterious past threatens to cast a shadow of scandal over the newly betrothed couple. Newland A...

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Poetry

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The ‘Card’ in question is Edward Henry Machin - His mother called him ‘Denry’. This light-hearted story is of his rise from humble beginnings as the son of a washerwoman and sempstress in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in the pottery towns (which Arnold Bennett christened ‘The Five Towns’) of the English Midlands; how, by his own wits, enterprise and ‘nerve’ he rose to wealth, married bliss and public recognition as the youngest-ever mayor of his home town. “’And yet,’ demanded Councillor Barlow, ‘what’s he done? What great cause is he identified with?’ ‘He’s identified,’ said the speaker, ‘with the great cause of cheering us all up’.” (summary by Andy Minter)...

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Literature

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For the Term of his Natural Life, written by Marcus Clarke, was published in the Australian Journal between 1870 and 1872 (as His Natural Life), appearing as a novel in 1874. It is the best known novelisation of life as a convict in early Australian history. Described as a ripping yarn, and at times relying on seemingly implausible coincidences, the story follows the fortunes of Rufus Dawes, a young man transported for a murder which he did not commit. The harsh and inhumane treatment meted out to the convicts, some of whom were transported for relatively minor crimes, is clearly conveyed. The conditions experienced by the convicts are graphically described. The novel was based on research by the author as well as a visit to the penal settlement of Port Arthur, Tasmania. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Term_of_his_Natural_Life )...

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Historical Fiction

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volunteers bring you 20 recordings of The Open Window by Edward Rowland Sill. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 27th, 2011. Edward Rowland Sill, American poet and educator, was born in Windsor, Connecticut. He was a modest and charming man, a graceful essayist, a sure critic. His contribution to American poetry is small but of fine quality. His best poems, such as The Venus of Milo, The Fool's Prayer and Opportunity, gave him a high place among the minor poets of America, which might have been higher but for his early death. (summary from Wikipedia)...

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Humor, Nature, Philosophy, Poetry

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A young untested ship captain finds a man named Leggatt clinging to the side of his ship. The Captain makes the unusual decision to hide Leggatt in his quarters. What is he thinking? Conrad will tell us. - The Secret Sharer was first published in the August and September 1910 issues of Harper’s Magazine (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Fiction, Sea stories, Mystery

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The Machine Stops is a short science fiction story. It describes a world in which almost all humans have lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual lives in isolation in a 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Most humans welcome this development, as they are skeptical and fearful of first-hand experience. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own. Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as 'unmechanical' and are threatened with Homelessness. Eventually, the Machine apocalyptically collapses, and the civilization of the Machine comes to an end. (Wikipedia)Comment by book coordinator: A condensed rapidfire of details and ideas imagining a dystopian world. Good thing he made it a short story. And the world he describes feels so appalling, although we are good on the way to be where Forster imagined us - shocker. So imaginative for 1909! Staying at home with the telly and internet and instant messaging and videoconferencing, google and pizza delivery and all flats and all cit...

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Science fiction

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The Souls of Black Folk is a well-known work of African-American literature by activist W.E.B. Du Bois. The book, published in 1903, contains several essays on race, some of which had been previously published in Atlantic Monthly magazine. Du Bois drew from his own experiences to develop this groundbreaking work on being African-American in American society. Outside of its notable place in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the first works to deal with sociology. (Summary from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Souls_of_Black_Folk Wikipedia.org )...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, History, Music