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North and South’ is a social novel by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published in the year 1855 in England. North and South is set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North of England. Forced to leave her home in the tranquil rural south, Margaret Hale settles with her parents in Milton where she witnesses the brutal world wrought by the industrial revolution and employers and workers clashing in the first organised strikes. Sympathetic to the poor, whose courage and tenacity she admires and among whom she makes friends, she clashes with John Thornton, a cotton mill manufacturer who belongs to the nouveaux riches class and whose contemptuous attitude to workers Margaret rejects. The novel traces both her growing understanding of the complexity of labor relations and her impact on well-meaning mill owners, and her conflicted relationship with John Thornton.

First published in the year 1817, the present book ‘Northanger Abbey’ by celebrated English novelist Jane Austen is a satire of the Gothic novels popular at the time of its first writing in 1798–99. The heroine, Catherine, thinks life is like a Gothic novel, but her real experiences bring her down to earth as an ordinary young woman.

Famous Italian romantic writer Grazia Deledda’s book ‘Nostalgia’ was first published in the year 1905. This book is an autobiographical story of early days of her being with her husband, and is a narrative of their romance together.

Nature may have done all for him that she could, have given him a handsome outside and a noble inside, but the world of inanimate objects is against him.

Alan Alexander Milne (18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was a British author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children’s poems

First published in the year 1921, “This volume consists of notes, themes, and sketches for works which Anton Chekhov intended to write, and are characteristic of the methods of his artistic production. Among his papers was found a series of sheets in a special cover with the inscription: “Themes, thoughts, notes, and fragments.” Madame L.O. Knipper-Chekhov, Chekhov’s wife, also possesses his note-book, in which he entered separate themes for his future work, quotations which he liked, etc. If he used any material, he used to strike it out in the note-book. The significance which Chekhov attributed to this material may be judged from the fact that he recopied most of it into a special copy book.” -Preface

Notes from Underground’ is a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is considered to be one of the first existentialist novels. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator, generally referred to as the Underground Man, who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told as the underground man’s diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy, especially Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s ‘What Is to Be Done?’.

The scene was the University Club. The talk spread over a good deal of space, as talk will when pink cocktails, or “green gardens in a glass” confront, or are in front of, the talkees. Dickie said it couldn’t be done and Bob said it was possible and that he could do it. He might not have felt such confidence had it not been for the verdant stimulation. He could have done anything just then, so why not this particular feat or stunt? and who was this temerarious one and what was he like?

C’est, d’abord, dans la chapelle abandonnée, la pauvre statuette de Notre-Dame-d’Amour.
C’est, ensuite, la vieille mère du gardian Pastorel…. Ne trouvez-vous pas qu’elle ressemble un peu à la vôtre, à ma grand’mère? Et n’est-ce pas que, pour cela, vous aimerez mon livre?

TABLE DES MATIÈRES
DEDICACE
I NOTRE-DAME-D’AMOUR.
II LA TARDARASSE GUETTE LA CAILLE.
III LE REMORDS DE MARTÉGAS.
IV A QUI LE CHEVAL?
V LE SULTAN ET SON SÉRAIL.
VI LE CONSEIL DES BÊTES.
VII LA COCARDE DE ZANETTE.
VIII ROSSELINE.
IX CE QUE ZANETTE IGNORE.
X ZANETTE ET ROSSELINE.
XI DOMPTEUR.
XII LA POURSUITE.
XIII L’ÉCURIE DE MAITRE AUGIAS.
XIV NOTRE-DAME-D’AMOUR, EXAUCEZ-MOI!
XV LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE.
XVI LE CHEVALIER.
XVII NOBLESSE.
XVIII LE SÉDEN.
XIX A QUI LE CHEVAL?
XX DEUX BONNES AMES.
XXI LE PLAT DE LENTILLES.
XXII TOUJOURS.
XXIII L’AMOUR SOUFFLE OU IL VEUT.
XXIV PARJURE.
XXV L’ABRIVADE.
XXVI AUX ARÈNES.
XXVII LE GRAND JOUR.
XXVIII UNE VENDETTA.
XXIX NOTRE-DAME-D’AMOUR.

“I Can and I will!!” Have you ever said these words to yourself with a firm conviction that you were speaking the truth-wht the strong feeling that needed no other proof?

It ought to be matter of surprise how men live in the midst of marvels, without taking heed of their existence. The slightest derangement of their accustomed walks in political or social life shall excite all their wonder, and furnish themes for their discussions, for months; while the prodigies that come from above are presented daily to their eyes, and are received without surprise, as things of course. In a certain sense, this may be well enough, inasmuch as all which comes directly from the hands of the Creator may be said so far to exceed the power of human comprehension, as to be beyond comment; but the truth would show us that the cause of this neglect is rather a propensity to dwell on such interests as those over which we have a fancied control, than on those which confessedly transcend our understanding. Thus is it ever with men. The wonders of creation meet them at every turn, without awakening reflection, while their minds labor on subjects that are not only ephemeral and illusory, but which never attain an elevation higher than that the most sordid interests can bestow.

Excerpt from The Book of Oaths of Allegiance in Colonial New England :The antiquity of the custom of giving and taking Oaths, or the debatable questions of their observance being a religious or legal ceremony, and whether the moral or political aspect has the greater effect upon the minds of men, are subjects with which this paper has nothing to do.

The subject of “Obesity,” including its cause and treatment, has received during the past few years a great deal of attention both in England and on the Continent. Thousands of persons have realized the extraordinary benefit to be derived from the simple treatment laid down in the following pages.

Some members of the medical profession have, in the course of their practice, availed themselves of the theory first propounded by our Author, but have failed to acknowledge—either through ignorance or inadvertence—the source of their information.

Certainly the everyday processes of the development, nutrition, and repair of our body and brain, which go on automatically and unconsciously within us, are far beyond the powers of our conscious personality.

“IT is a wonderful fact in the swift expansion of mechanical knowledge and appliances of the last hundred years that while for unknown ages the wind was the only propelling force used for purposes of navigation, apart from the rude application of power through oars worked by men, the whole scheme of steam transport has grown, practically, to its present wonderful perfection within the lifetime of men yet living.” -an excerpt

GOD almighty first planted a garden: and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment of the spirits of man; without which, buildings or palaces are but gross handy-works: and a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility or elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection. from this Book

Off on a Comet is an 1877 science fiction novel by Jules Verne.

There was a thoughtful frown on the face of the man who was the possessor of twenty million dollars. He was a tall, spare man, with a fringe of reddish-brown hair encircling a bald spot. His blue eyes, fixed just now in a steady gaze upon a row of ponderous law books across the room, were friendly and benevolent in direct contradiction to the bulldog, never-let-go fighting qualities of the square jaw below the firm, rather thin lips.

Now,’ said the doctor, ‘my part is done, and, I may say, with some vanity, well done. It remains only to get you out of this cold and poisonous city, and to give you two months of a pure air and an easy conscience. The last is your affair. To the first I think I can help you. It fells indeed rather oddly; it was but the other day the Padre came in from the country; and as he and I are old friends, although of contrary professions, he applied to me in a matter of distress among some of his parishioners. This was a family–but you are ignorant of Spain, and even the names of our grandees are hardly known to you; suffice it, then, that they were once great people, and are now fallen to the brink of destitution. Nothing now belongs to them but the residencia, and certain leagues of desert mountain, in the greater part of which not even a goat could support life. But the house is a fine old place, and stands at a great height among the hills, and most salubriously; and I had no sooner heard my friend’s tale, than I remembered you. I told him I had a wounded officer, wounded in the good cause, who was now able to make a change; and I proposed that his friends should take you for a lodger. Instantly the Padre’s face grew dark, as I had maliciously foreseen it would. It was out of the question, he said. Then let them starve, said I, for I have no sympathy with tatterdemalion pride. There-upon we separated, not very content with one another; but yesterday, to my wonder, the Padre returned and made a submission: the difficulty, he said, he had found upon enquiry to be less than he had feared; or, in other words, these proud people had put their pride in their pocket. I closed with the offer; and, subject to your approval, I have taken rooms for you in the residencia. The air of these mountains will renew your blood; and the quiet in which you will there live is worth all the medicines in the world.’

“By the operation of the new Order in Council regulating Civil Service superannuations, under which officers who have attained the age of sixty-five have—nolens volens—to take their pensions, there will be, at the end of this year 1891, quite an exodus of many who through the survival of the strongest and fittest are still serving Her Majesty, although they have reached the Psalmist’s allotted span of three score years and ten.” -Preface by RC Tombs

Excerpt from book:
” From the lubras,” rather consciously ; ” I gave them beef in exchange.” ” A very fair one,” but a light suddenly striking upon my mental vision. ” Where do the lubras get them from ? They toil not, neither do they spin ! ” ” I don’t know for certain, sir,” she answered, looking down, ” but they’re digging the potato crop, I believe, at Campbell’s farm.” Here was foreshadowed the enormous Warrnambool export, that immense intercolonial potato trade, which has latterly assumed such proportions, and which invades even this far north-western corner of New South Wales. What glorious times I had, gun in hand, or with our three famous kangaroo dogs, slaying the swift marsupial. In those days he was tolerated and rather admired, no one imagining that he would be, a couple of generations later, a scourge and an oppressor, eating the sparse herbage of the overstocked squatter, and being classed as a ” noxious animal,” with a price actually put on his head by utilitarian legislators. THE DEATH of VIOLET. Though kangaroo were plentiful, they were not so overwhelming in number as they have since become. Joe Burge and I had many a day’s good sport together on foot. Like Mr. Sawyer and other sensible people we often saved our horses by using our own legs. For the dogs, Chase was a rough-haired Scotch deerhound, not quite pure, yet had she great speed and courage. Nothing daunted her. I saw her once jump off a dray, where she was in hospital with a broken leg (it had been smashed by the kick of an emu), and hobble off after a sudden- appearing kangaroo. She was said to have killed a dingo at ten months old—no trifling feat. Nero and Violet were brother and sister. They were smooth-haired greyhounds—the ordinary kangaroo dog of the colonist—very fast; and from a distant cross of ” …

English author Warwick Deeping’s 1928 novel ‘Old Pybus’ centers around a London bookshop proprietor and his relationship with his sons. He is estranged from them as they refused to enlist in World War I. Many years later, now a hotelier, he meets a young book-lover who stops into his inn. Unknow to him, it is his grandson.

While travelling through the classic realms of Greece some years ago, sincerely desirous of discovering the lurking-place of a certain war which the newspapers of my own country were describing with some vividness, I chanced upon the base of the far-famed Mount Olympus. Night was coming on apace and I was tired, having been led during the day upon a wild-goose chase by my guide, who had assured me that he had definitely located the scene of hostilities between the Greeks and the Turks.

First published in the year 1957, ‘Omnilingual’ is a science fiction short story by famous writer H. Beam Piper. This short story is unusual, in focussing on the problem of archaeology on an alien culture.

Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas is the second book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1847, and a sequel to his first South Sea narrative Typee, also based on the author’s experiences in the South Pacific.

TRUTHS of the physical order may possess much external significance, but internal significance they have none. The latter is the privilege of intellectual and moral truths, which are concerned with the objectivation of the will in its highest stages, whereas physical truths are concerned with it in its lowest.

John Stuart Mill was born on 20th May 1806. He was a delicate child, and the extraordinary education designed by his father was not calculated to develop and improve his physical powers. “I never was a boy,” he says; “never played cricket.” His exercise was taken in the form of walks with his father, during which the elder Mill lectured his son and examined him on his work. It is idle to speculate on the possible results of a different treatment. Mill remained delicate throughout his life, but was endowed with that intense mental energy which is so often combined with physical weakness. His youth was sacrificed to an idea; he was designed by his father to carry on his work; the individuality of the boy was unimportant.

In this book, Patrick Matthew argues that, while his circumstance-adaptive law would in general work to keep species in stasis during periods of environmental constancy, the situation would be different in the transition periods between one epoch and the next. Here, the same law would act on isolated groups of organisms to effect rapid evolutionary change, resulting in the large-scale changes in fauna and flora evident from the fossil record.

This exquisite novel, first published in 1859, like so many great works of art, holds depths of meaning which at first sight lie veiled under the simplicity and harmony of the technique. To the English reader On the Eve is a charmingly drawn picture of a quiet Russian household, with a delicate analysis of a young girl’s soul; but to Russians it is also a deep and penetrating diagnosis of the destinies of the Russia of the fifties.
Elena, the Russian girl, is the central figure of the novel. In comparing her with Turgenev’s other women, the reader will remark that he is allowed to come into closer spiritual contact with her than even with Lisa. The successful portraits of women drawn by men in fiction are generally figures for the imagination to play on; however much that is told to one about them, the secret springs of their character are left a little obscure, but when Elena stands before us we know all the innermost secrets of her character.

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. We havent used any OCR or photocopy to produce this book.

“A word of explanation is needed for this book, which, in attempting to be at once a story and a history, probably fails in either aim.
“That, however, is for the reader to say. As the writer, I have only to point out where my history ends, my story begins, and clear the way for criticism. Briefly, then, I have not allowed fiction to interfere with fact in the slightest degree. The reader may rest assured that every incident bearing in the remotest degree on the Indian Mutiny, or on the part which real men took in it, is scrupulously exact, even to the date, the hour, the scene, the very weather. Nor have I allowed the actual actors in the great tragedy to say a word regarding it which is not to be found in the accounts of eye-witnesses, or in their own writings.” -Preface