Essays & Short Works
Celebrated Crimes, Vol. 1: The Borgias and The Cenci
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Alexandre Dumas
Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language--has minced no words--to describe the violent …
The Soul of Man
Read by Martin Geeson
Oscar Wilde
“(T)he past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.”Published originally …
Essays, First Series (version 2)
Read by Bob Neufeld
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: First Series is a series of 12 essays written by Ralph Waldo Emerson concerning transcendentalism, including Self-Reliance. It was p…
Irish Wit and Humor
Read by James E. Carson
Various
Excerpted anecdotes from the biographies of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell, relating humorous snippets of politics in 18th and 19th ce…
Absolute Surrender and Other Addresses
Read by Joy Chan
Andrew Murray
This is a series of short messages written by the South African minister, Andrew Murray. They deal with the necessity and joy of surrenderin…
Our Island Story, Part 2
Read by Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023)
Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
Our Island Story was first published in 1905 and became an instant classic. Beginning with the Romans and following the triumphs and foibles…
Pioneers of Science
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Oliver Lodge
This book takes its origin in a course of lectures on the history and progress of Astronomy arranged for Sir Oliver Lodge in the year 1887. …
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
Read by Laura Caldwell
Isabella L. Bird
Isabella Bird began travelling while in her early twenties to help alleviate illness that had plagued her since childhood. She was a single …
The Anti-Federalist Papers
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Patrick Henry
During the period of debate over the ratification of the Constitution, numerous independent local speeches and articles were published all a…
Moral Letters, Vol. I
Read by Felipe Vogel
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
"Among the personalities of the early Roman Empire there are few who offer to the readers of to-day such dramatic interest as does Luci…
Other People's Money
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Louis D. Brandeis
Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It is a collection of essays written by Louis Brandeis published as a book in 1914. The book at…
Pragmatism
Read by Fredrik Karlsson
William James
'Pragmatism' contains a series of public lectures held by William James in Boston 1906–7. James provides a popularizing outline of his view …
The Greek View of Life
Read by Martin Geeson
Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
“With the Greek civilisation beauty perished from the world. Never again has it been possible for man to believe that harmony is in fact the…
The Letters of a Post-Impressionist
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Vincent Van Gogh
“Being the Familiar Correspondence of Vincent Van Gogh ... [Van Gogh's] art was appreciated during his life only by a very few and it is but…
What is Man? and Other Essays
Read by John Greenman
Mark Twain
"What Is Man?", published by Mark Twain in 1906, is a dialogue between a young man and an older man jaded to the world. It involve…
A Room of One’s Own
Virginia Woolf
This feminist essay argues for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy. First…
Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases
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Grenville Kleiser
A Practical Handbook of Pertinent Expressions, Striking Similes, Literary, Commercial, Conversational, and Oratorical Terms, for the Embelli…
Walking
Read by Chris Masterson
Henry David Thoreau
This was originally a lecture given by Thoreau in 1851 at the Concord lyceum titled "The Wild" . He revised it before his death an…
Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, volume 02
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H. G. Wells
The Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, is a work of enormous proportions. Setting out with the simple goal of offer…
The Three Great Virtues - Three Essays by Emerson
Read by Robert Scott
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Faith Hope and Charity ...... In the Language of Emerson these translate as: Self - Reliance, Love, and Friendship. (summary by Robert Scott…