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Essays, Letters & Speeches — page 12
598 public-domain essays, letters & speeches books, summarised. Page 12 of 13.
The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume 4.: The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century
Unknown
A majestic strain of mountain lyricism meets the quiet heartbeats of cottage life, capturing a century of Scottish song in all its rugged beauty.
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 8: Italy, Sicily, and Greece, Part Two
Unknown
Centuries of art, history, and sacred landscape converge as a chorus of legendary writers guides the traveler across the sunlit, ruin-scattered terrains of southern Europe and the Aegean.
Thoughts I Met on the Highway: Words of Friendly Cheer From "The Life Books"
Ralph Waldo Trine
A quiet collection of meditative counsel offers direct principles for mastering one's internal mental life, contending that disciplined thoughts directly construct personal reality, physical health, and outward success.
Revolution, and Other Essays
Jack London
A fiery socialist vision clashes with raw personal narrative, revealing how systemic greed crushes the human spirit while championing collective rebirth.
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes
Unknown
Driven by high idealism, political betrayal, and tragic fate, historical heroes and tormented thinkers battle for human freedom across grand dramatic canvases and poetic landscapes.
In Defence of Harriet Shelley
Mark Twain
When literary biography transforms into partisan defense, historical truth often gets swept aside to shield a cherished romantic icon from his own moral failings.
Letters from Spain
Joseph Blanco White
To understand Spanish society on the eve of foreign invasion and domestic crisis, one must look beyond grand histories into private doubts, sacred rituals, and the silent machinery of absolute power.
Our Changing Morality: A Symposium
Unknown
A sweeping re-examination of American relationships reveals how rapid social shifts, industrial shifts, and economic developments have shattered old codes of conduct.
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7: Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One)
Unknown
A grand tour of Italy’s legendary landscapes, monuments, and works of art comes alive through the keen eyes of history's most observant travelers and critics.
State of the Union Addresses
Ronald Reagan
Through eight turbulent years of economic reinvention and Cold War brinkmanship, an American presidency crafts its vision of renewal, free enterprise, and national strength before Congress and the world.
Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name: of the Faith and Presented to the Illustrious Members of Our Universities
Campion, Edmund, Saint
HOOK A brilliant scholar turns from a life of academic prestige to a clandestine mission of faith, challenging the intellectual foundations of the Elizabethan religious settlement in a desperate, final act of defiance.
Critical Studies
Ouida
A fierce, sweeping collection of essays, this work serves as an uncompromising indictment of modern societal decay, intellectual complacency, and the systematic destruction of artistic and natural beauty at the turn of the twentieth century.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
These reflections offer a wandering, deeply personal inquiry into the nature of humanity, power, and the art of conversation. They serve as an intimate portrait of a mind observing its own limitations while questioning the customs of the world.
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
This volume serves as a comprehensive bridge between the formal classroom and the home, transforming the pursuit of knowledge into a lifelong, self-directed endeavor for the nineteenth-century citizen.
State of the Union Addresses
George W. (George Walker) Bush
These annual reports chronicle a transformative period in American history, documenting the shift from domestic economic focus to a nation defined by its global commitments during a time of protracted war.
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20)
Charles Sumner
This collection of political correspondence and addresses traces the fierce, unyielding moral crusade against the expansion of slavery in the United States during the volatile years preceding the Civil War.
Quotes and Images From The Works of Gilbert Parker
Gilbert Parker
The human spirit is a restless traveler, forever caught between the comfort of familiar habits and the haunting pull of things left undone. This collection maps the geography of a life lived in the tension between duty and desire.
Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature
King of the Hawaiian Islands Kamehameha IV
The crown of Hawaii stands at a precarious crossroads, balancing between ancestral tradition and the overwhelming influence of foreign powers. These formal addresses reveal a monarch navigating the fragile survival of his people.
Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers
John Burroughs
This collection of essays serves as an intimate, observant field guide to the small mammals of the North American woods, capturing the distinct personalities and survival instincts of creatures both common and elusive. It remains a classic of nature writing for its blend of scientific curiosity and genuine…
The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega, Surnamed the Prince of Castilian Poets, Translated into English Verse: With a Critical and Historical Essay on Spanish Poetry and a Life of the Author
Garcilaso de la Vega
Through the lens of a nineteenth-century scholar, these pages revive the voice of a Renaissance master whose lyrical precision shaped the Spanish tongue for centuries.
Yet Again
Beerbohm, Max, Sir
A keen observer of the trivial and the profound, the author navigates the eccentricities of early twentieth-century life with a sharp wit and a gentle, discerning eye. These essays transform the mundane into the memorable, revealing the curious architecture of the human condition.
Religious Studies, Sketches and Poems
Harriet Beecher Stowe
This collection of religious reflections, sketches, and verse serves as a meditative companion for those seeking to understand the humanity of Jesus. Through a series of tender, contemplative essays, the text maps the life of the Savior from his infancy to his final, sacrificial hours.
Books and men
Agnes Repplier
These essays explore the friction between past and present, examining how we interpret history, literature, and the evolving nature of childhood through a lens of skeptical yet appreciative inquiry.
Chopin and Other Musical Essays
Henry T. Finck
Music is more than mere entertainment; it is a profound, visceral language capable of shaping the human heart and mirroring the deepest complexities of the spirit. This collection of essays serves as a passionate, informed defense of the Romantic spirit in music, centering on the mastery of Chopin and the…
Seeing and Hearing
George William Erskine Russell
This collection of essays offers a sharp-eyed, nostalgic tour through the vanishing customs, manners, and social structures of Edwardian England. It serves as a witty, melancholy record of a world caught in the act of changing forever.
Courts and Criminals
Arthur Cheney Train
A seasoned prosecutor pulls back the curtain on the gritty, often messy mechanics of American justice. He offers a cynical yet pragmatic look at the disparity between legal theory and the reality of city crime.
Facts and Fictions of Life
Helen H. (Helen Hamilton) Gardener
We often mistake the accidents of our birth for fixed moral destinies. By unmasking the "fictions" that govern social and biological life, we might finally begin to treat human beings with genuine scientific and ethical honesty.
In the Catskills: Selections from the Writings of John Burroughs
John Burroughs
The Catskill Mountains are not merely a backdrop for nature study, but a living, breathing laboratory where the observation of a bird’s nest or the tracking of a fox reveals the essential harmony between humanity and the wild. This collection of essays captures the meditative beauty and rugged vitality of a region…
Shadows and sunbeams: Being a second series of Fern leaves from Fanny's portfolio
Fanny Fern
This collection of mid-19th-century essays offers a sharp, witty, and deeply empathetic look at the domestic and social tensions of American life. It is a portrait of a society caught between rigid expectations and the persistent, often humorous, reality of human nature.
The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1
Demosthenes
The political climate of classical Athens survives in the urgent, stinging prose of a man who watched his city’s independence wither under the rising power of Macedonia. These orations capture a desperate, brilliant attempt to rally a distracted public against a formidable foreign threat.
Of Gardens: An essay
Francis Bacon
Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, providing a necessary refreshment for the spirit that no palace or building can match. It is the ultimate expression of civility and elegant living.
Talks About Flowers
Wellcome, M. D., Mrs.
The simple act of planting a seed can transform a lonely home into an Eden of beauty. By nurturing the earth, one finds a quiet, divine gladness that transcends the struggles of daily life.
Letters of Catherine Benincasa
Catherine, of Siena, Saint
A fourteenth-century mystic intervenes in the collapse of the Church with letters of astonishing, uncompromising fire. She speaks not as a distant saint, but as a woman wrestling with the raw politics of her dying age.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 20, August 1877
Various
This nineteenth-century periodical offers a panoramic view of its era, blending travelogues, social commentary, and fiction into a singular snapshot of Victorian intellectual life.
The Fantasy Fan, November 1933: The Fans' Own Magazine
Various
This archival document offers a rare, unfiltered glimpse into the 1933 grassroots subculture of science fiction and fantasy fandom. It preserves the earnest debates, literary aspirations, and early networking efforts of a fledgling intellectual community.
The Social Emergency: Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals
Unknown
This collection of lectures addresses the urgency of sex education in early 20th-century America, arguing that moral stability depends on replacing societal silence with scientific, transparent, and protective instruction for the young.
The works of Richard Hurd, volume 6 (of 8)
Richard Hurd
This collection of sermons offers a rigorous, intellectual engagement with Christian doctrine, inviting the reader to weigh the moral claims of faith against the demands of human reason. It serves as a window into the thoughtful, structured pulpit oratory of the eighteenth-century Church of England.
Bits about Home Matters
Helen Hunt Jackson
The struggle to nurture a soul within the confines of domestic life is an ancient, quiet battle. This collection of essays examines the architecture of the heart and the daily responsibilities that define a true home.
Latin America and the United States: Addresses by Elihu Root
Elihu Root
This collection of diplomatic speeches serves as an enduring portrait of early twentieth-century American foreign policy, capturing a pivotal effort to cultivate friendship and mutual understanding across the Western Hemisphere.
Sporting Society
Unknown
The pursuit of sport in the nineteenth century was more than a pastime; it was the rigorous, sometimes perilous, social language of a class. These sketches capture the field in all its grit, glory, and absurdity.
The Cross of Berny
Théophile Gautier
A journey through the wreckage of four intertwined lives, this epistolary chronicle captures the fragile intersection of vanity, romantic obsession, and the devastating cost of misreading the human heart.
Mushrooms on the Moor
Frank Boreham
The ordinary, often-overlooked details of daily existence serve as gateways to the infinite, transforming a quiet life into a journey of profound discovery. Through a series of reflective essays, the author invites readers to find the extraordinary within the mundane, arguing that the true measure of character is…
Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)
Lucius M. (Lucius Manlius) Sargent
An aging sexton observes the passing of Boston’s old aristocracy, using the solemnity of the graveyard to meditate on the foibles, follies, and fading fashions of the living.
Quotes and Images From The Novels of Georg Ebers
Georg Ebers
A noble mind can never swim with the stream, and in this collection, the echoes of antiquity offer a timeless map of the human condition. These fragments serve as an invitation to consider the delicate balance between the weight of history and the fleeting sweetness of the present moment.
The Crimes of England
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
HOOK This analysis strips away diplomatic pleasantries to argue that the true path to patriotism lies in a cold-eyed confession of one's own country’s historical sins.
The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry
André Dacier
This foundational text reclaims the rigid structural integrity of classical drama, arguing that the true purpose of tragedy is to refine human passions through reason and moral instruction. It serves as a vigorous defense of the ancient rules of poetry.
Thistledown: A Book of Scotch Humour, Character, Folk-lore, Story & Anecdote
Robert Ford
The Scottish character is a tapestry woven from wit, practicality, and an unshakable, often irreverent, belief in the spirit of the people. This collection gathers the sharpest threads of that heritage, capturing a nation through the voices of its own sons and daughters.
A Confession of St. Augustine
William Dean Howells
The fading winter sun of a bypassed era illuminates this meditative account, where the quiet rhythms of an aging city offer more solace than the frantic progress of the modern world.