Essays & Short Works
- Philosophical Travelogues
- Essays on Society and Culture
- Essays for Personal Growth
- Explorations in Science and Thought
- Explorations in Psychology
- Political Essays and Reflections
- Political Essays and Manifestos
- Philosophical Essays on Existence
The Ghosts of Piccadilly
Nothing spooky or supernatural, but a very personal gathering of gossip, letters, and fragments of biography of famous people who have lived…
Contra Gentes
Contra Gentes is the first of a two volume work published by Athanasius of Alexandria prior to the outbreak of the Arian controversy (ca. 31…
Ways of Wood Folk
Late nineteenth-century naturalist William J. Long invites us in to the secret worlds of the woodland animals. Containing Long's own animal …
The Gamekeeper at Home
Richard Jefferies (1848 – 1887) was born and spent his childhood on a farm at Coate,Wiltshire. He joined the ‘Wiltshire and Gloucestershire …
What's Wrong With the World
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) has been called the “prince of paradox.” Time magazine observed of his writing style: “Whenever possibl…
Ten Days in a Madhouse
In 1887 Nellie Bly, one of the first female newspaper writers, and a young reporter who would soon go on to make a career for herself as an …
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and of Seeking Truth
The Discourse on Method is best known as the source of the famous quotation “cogito ergo sum”, “I think, therefore I am.” …. It is a method …
The Golden Bough
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is a wide-ranging comparative study of mythology and religion, written by Scottish anthropol…
The Age of Reason
The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a pamphlet, written by a British and American revolutionary Thoma…
My Inventions and Other Works
Between February and October 1919, Nikola Tesla submitted many articles to the magazine Electrical Experimenter. The most famous of these wo…
A Holy Life the Beauty of Christianity
Written in the late 1600s by John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress, this treatise exhorts Christians to holy living. Bunyan takes as…
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government) is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published i…
The Art of Controversy
The Art of Controversy (or The Art of Being Right) (Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten) is a short treatise written in 1831 by the German philosop…
What I Saw in America
In What I Saw in America, G. K. Chesterton offers a unique perspective on the American landscape, culture, and spirit through a series of in…
The Profits of Religion
"The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation" is a non-fiction book, first published in 1917, by the American nov…
A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift almost defines satire in this biting and brutal pamphlet in which he suggests that poor (Catholic) Irish families should fatt…
All Things Considered
Another delightful and sharply pointed excursion into the topics of the day, and of this day as well, with Gilbert Keith Chesterton. These r…
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argued that women are not naturally inferior…
Poor Richard's Almanack
A brief biographical sketch of Franklin's life, followed by a collection (published in 1899) of 670 aphorisms, apothegms, or proverbs - shor…
Utilitarianism
In Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill presents a thorough examination of the ethical theory that advocates for actions that promote the greate…