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A collection of several short fairy tales by the noted Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and anthropologist Andrew Lang. These tales are first English translations of fairy tales from many different languages. This volume was published in a colour-coded manner with violet at the background of each of the pages. He published around 25 such volumes with different colour codes for each. These volumes got immensely popular at that pont of time.

First published in the year 1902, famous American writer Owen Wister’s present fictional novel ‘The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains’ describes the life of a cowboy on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. It is known as the first true western fiction ever written.

First published in the year 1859, the present historical novel ‘The Virginians’ by William Thackeray tells the story of Henry Esmond’s twin grandsons, George and Henry Warrington. Henry’s romantic entanglements with an older woman lead up to his taking a commission in the British army and fighting under the command of General Wolfe at the capture of Quebec. On the outbreak of the American War of Independence he takes the revolutionary side. George, who is also a British officer, thereupon resigns his commission rather than take up arms against his brother. (courtesy: wikipedia)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Twenty-five years ago the school children used to chant their lessons. The manner of their delivery was a singsong recitative between the utterance of an Episcopal minister and the drone of a tired sawmill. I mean no disrespect. We must have lumber and sawdust.

I remember one beautiful and instructive little lyric that emanated from the physiology class. The most striking line of it was this:

“The shin-bone is the long-est bone in the hu-man bod-y.”

The Voyage of the Beagle is the title most commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect.

First published in the year 1915, famous English Modern novelist Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘The Voyage Out’ introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central character of Woolf’s later novel, ‘Mrs Dalloway’. Through this novel, Woolf has satirized the ways of Edwardian life in England.

The Wanderings of a Spiritualist’ is an intensely personal account of spiritualism by the famous British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He wrote it soon after announcing his belief in communication with the dead. It was first published in the year 1921.

For some reason, which may be either arrogance or apathy, the British are very slow to state their case to the world. At present the reasons for our actions and the methods which we have used are set forth in many Blue-books, tracts, and leaflets, but have never, so far as I know, been collected into one small volume. In view of the persistent slanders to which our politicians and our soldiers have been equally exposed, it becomes a duty which we owe to our national honour to lay the facts before the world. I wish someone more competent, and with some official authority, had undertaken the task, which I have tried to do as best I might from an independent standpoint.

The War in the Air, a military science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, written in four months in 1907 and serialised and published in 1908 in The Pall Mall Magazine, is like many of Wells’s works notable.

“Early in life Mr Harding found himself located at Barchester. A fine voice and a taste for sacred music had decided the position in which he was to exercise his calling, and for many years he performed the easy but not highly paid duties of a minor canon. At the age of forty a small living in the close vicinity of the town increased both his work and his income, and at the age of fifty he became precentor of the cathedral.” -an excerpt

The Waste Land’ is a long poem by T. S. Eliot. It is widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Eliot’s poem loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. Eliot employs many literary and cultural allusions from the Western canon, Buddhism and the Hindu Upanishads. Because of this, critics and scholars regard the poem as obscure. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, and time and conjuring of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures.

Tom, a poor orphan, is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep, Grimes, to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot. While engaged in this dreadful task, he loses his way and emerges in the bedroom of Ellie, the young daughter of the house who mistakes him for a thief. He runs away, and, hot and bothered, he slips into a cooling stream, falls fast asleep, and becomes a water baby. In this new life, he meets all sorts of aquatic creatures, including an engaging old lobster, other water babies.

If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you then your own master? be ashamed to catch yourself idle, when there is so much to be done for yourself, your famiy, your coutry, and your king. Handle your tools without mittens, remember, that the cat in gloves catches no mice as poor Richard says.

When the Melmottes arrive in London everyone agrees their manners are wanting, their taste is excerable and their lineage and background decidedly shadowy. But their money is far from revolting, and city society quickly makes allowances for the mysterious financier and his family. Soon hearts, minds and family savings are swept into the whirl of Augustus Melmotte’s lavish parties and exciting investment plans – but is it all an elaborate swindle?

The Wedding is an 1889 Russian one-act play by Anton Chekhov.

Emily Sarah Holt was an English novelist who wrote about 50 books, mainly for children. This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process.We have made best efforts that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print.

One of the best known Victorian English novelist Thomas Hardy’s novel ‘The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament’ was written and first serialized in the year 1892, but was published in a complete book form after his last novel was published.

It is the object of the author, by this volume, to place before the people a brief history of the western states and territories through which he traveled in a late long overland tour, together with a sketch of the customs and occupations of the people in all the parts described. A journey by wagon through so much territory, by so many unknown, has furnished the author with knowledge that will be of so much value to persons who think of going West, and more especially to those who intend trying their fortunes in the regions of the setting sun, that he feels himself somewhat in duty bound to reduce it to print. Many fabulous and speculative histories have been written of the same country; and, with prejudiced pens, they have been deceitful records.

I have first described the features of the country; then its vegetation; and next the wild men and the brute creatures which inhabit it. However, I have not been bound by any strict rule in that respect, as my object has been to produce a work calculated to interest the family circle rather than one of scientific pretensions. I have endeavoured to impart, in an attractive manner, information about its physical geography, mineral riches, vegetable productions, and the appearance and customs of the human beings inhabiting it.

Many critics and some friends of Mahatma Gandhi have found fault with his desire to introduce simpler methods of spinning and weaving and to do away with much of the complicated machinery of Modern Civilisation. The reason why they object is that they fear such methods mean not progress towards a higher state but relapse into a primitive condition of civilisation or even of barbarism. His denunciation of the age of machinery and of the Industrial System has been criticised by many as the ravings of a visionary and of one who is merely an impracticable idealist. This is a strange criticism to come from those who give their allegiance to a form of civilisation or ‘Culture’ which has led to the unprecedented horrors of the late European War and the century-old disgraces [pg x] of the Industrial System. Is this present modern civilisation so very desirable that we should wish it to continue in perpetuity?

A novel that was very popular from the time of its publication uup till the Second World War, ‘The White Company’ was written by the author of the famous detective series of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyal. This novel is an evidence of Doyle’s passion and his literary beauty as a historian.

The time of this story is a year and a term later than that of The Gold Bat. The history of Wrykyn in between these two books is dealt with in a number of short stories, some of them brainy in the extreme, which have appeared in various magazines. I wanted Messrs Black to publish these, but they were light on their feet and kept away—a painful exhibition of the White Feather.
P. G. Wodehouse

Elizabeth Spellman opened her eyes, turned on her pillow, and minutely studied the face of her sleeping husband. To her, Mahlon Spellman was not a vain, pompous, erratic little man of fifty. When she looked at him she saw the man who had courted her, of whose moral and mental attainments she had been so sure.

The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd is a play by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. It was written in 1911 and the revised version was published in 1914 by Duckworth & Co. in London and Mitchell Kennerley in New York.

In this classic short story, Chekhov takes a snapshot of the Russian life, illuminating the harsh complexities and yet subtle simplicities that interact seamlessly together.

The Wife of His Youth (1899) was Chesnutt’s second collection of short stories, drawing upon his mixed race heritage. These deal largely with race relations, the far-reaching effects of Jim Crow laws, and color prejudice among African Americans toward darker-skinned blacks. Eric J. Sundquist wrote: “Chesnutt’s color-line stories, like his conjure tales, are at their best haunting, psychologically and philosophically astute studies of the nation’s betrayal of the promise of racial equality and its descent into a brutal world of segregation. [He] made the family a means of delineating America’s racial crisis, during slavery and afterward.” For our PG edition, I have added three of Chesnutt’s essays on the “color line” in an Appendix to this collection.