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Essays, Letters & Speeches — page 21
1,906 public-domain essays, letters & speeches books, summarised. Page 21 of 40.
Why we are at war
Woodrow Wilson
A nation shifts from reluctant neutrality to total war, tracing the solemn intellectual and political journey of a president forced to abandon his hopes for international arbitration.
An Address to Men of Science: Calling Upon Them to Stand Forward and Vindicate the Truth
Richard Carlile
A call to arms for scientists to challenge superstition and religious dogma, advocating for a rational and enlightened society.
An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744)
Corbyn Morris
A rigorous mid-eighteenth-century attempt to categorize the mechanics of comedy shows how distinct rhetorical devices shape human laughter and literary craft.
From a Girl's Point of View
Lilian Bell
A sharp, humorous broadside against male ignorance and social hypocrisy, this 1890s feminist essay collection anatomizes the absurdities of romantic courtship and the quiet genius of the modern woman.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 79, May, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
This May 1864 issue of the premier American monthly offers a vivid snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century intellectual life, moving seamlessly between Arctic travel, Civil War history, agrarian philosophy, and cutting-edge industrial technology.
Woman in the golden ages
Amelia Gere Mason
For centuries, male historians ignored the inner lives of women or reduced them to footnotes, yet women repeatedly shaped the intellectual and moral heights of human civilization.
A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 2 of 2: Described in a Series of Letters by a Lady
Augusta Macgregor Holmes
Crossing steep Alpine ledges and flooded Italian riverbeds on horseback, an intrepid 19th-century Englishwoman transforms a challenging Continental trek into a rich, detailed study of European landscapes, local cultures, and mountain travel.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846
Various
A broad, combative panorama of mid-nineteenth-century British intellectual life, where Tory politics, dramatic history, legal biography, and military adventures collide across a single issue.
Companionable Books
Henry Van Dyke
Reading is more than passive leisure; at its best, it becomes a living dialogue where the author’s spirit speaks directly to your own.
Memories of Canada and Scotland
Argyll, John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, Duke of
A collection of formal addresses, celebratory verse, and ancient Gaelic lore bridges the Old World and the New through the vision of a nineteenth-century statesman.
'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation
Aaron Hill
In born aptitude and careful study must align to achieve true creative brilliance, standardizing artistic rules only suffocates the imagination, and poetic imagery demands vital, unadorned strength to touch the human heart.
The letters of Richard Ford, 1797-1858
Richard Ford
An observant heart, a lively pen, and a taste for local truths combine to yield an unusually vivid mirror of nineteenth-century Europe.
The Life of the Fields
Richard Jefferies
Looking beyond the hedge, a keen observer discovers that the quietest corner of the countryside holds a constant, quiet drama of growth, predation, and human labor.
Essays on Darwinism
Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing
Nature reveals its deepest secrets not to those who demand instant certainty, but to those willing to trace the quiet, steady work of time across mountain ranges, animal instincts, and the unhurried fossil records of the earth.
In a Green Shade: A Country Commentary
Maurice Hewlett
A retired man of letters sits in his Wiltshire garden, reflecting on the altered world after the First World War.
Post-Prandial Philosophy
Grant Allen
Civilisation relies entirely on the practical arts, yet society's rules are routinely set by men who merely hunt and fight.
The Comforts of Home
Ralph Bergengren
Domestic absurdities become quiet comedy when a writer turns his eye upon cellar stairs, stubborn bureaus, and the unfeeling monster lurking in the furnace room.
Gleanings from Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
In a world defined by the shadow of mortality, these essays offer a quiet, reasoned defense of life, urging us to greet the end not with terror, but with a steady, tranquil understanding.
Handbook of Home Rule: Being Articles on the Irish Question
Unknown
A collection of political essays from the late nineteenth century, this volume gathers intellectual arguments in favor of granting Ireland self-governance. It serves as a window into a pivotal moment of constitutional debate.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 29, August, 1873
Various
This August 1873 issue of a prominent literary periodical offers a multifaceted time capsule, blending serialized fiction, travelogues, and cultural commentary for the Victorian reader. It functions as a mirror of its era’s intellectual and social preoccupations.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 85, January, 1875
Various
This diverse collection captures the mid-Victorian intellectual spirit, blending travelogues, romantic fiction, and scientific curiosity into a vibrant mosaic of nineteenth-century life and thought.
Lost Leaders
Andrew Lang
This collection of essays serves as a gentle, erudite bridge to the nineteenth-century mind, capturing the fleeting pleasures of a world that valued leisure, literature, and the quiet observation of human habits. It invites the reader to step out of the rush of modern life and into the steady, observant gaze of a…
State of the Union Addresses
Benjamin Harrison
These annual reports serve as a direct window into the administrative ambitions and national anxieties of the United States during the final years of the nineteenth century.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 37, November, 1860: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
A vibrant, panoramic snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century intellectual life, capturing the era’s literary ambitions, social tensions, and the restless, inquisitive spirit of the American mind on the brink of profound change.
The Champagne Standard
Lane, John, Mrs.
This collection of essays serves as a sharp-eyed critique of early 20th-century social pretensions, exploring the hollow rituals of status and the domestic absurdities found in both England and America.
A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin
A. Woodward
This work functions as an intense, reactionary polemic written in 1853, serving as a direct rebuttal to the antislavery sentiments sweeping the United States at the time.
An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825)
Hillary, William, Sir
Driven by the frequent, harrowing loss of life along the British coast, this earnest appeal proposes the creation of a unified, national organization to save shipwrecked mariners and protect stranded property.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
Various
A vibrant, unpredictable mosaic of mid-19th-century British thought, this volume captures the fierce political, literary, and social debates of an era in constant, restless transition.
Conversation: Its Faults and Its Graces
Unknown
Language is a moral instrument, and the manner of our daily speech reveals the state of our hearts. This collection of nineteenth-century addresses and instructional guides serves as a manual for cultivating grace, precision, and kindness in the art of conversation.
Lectures and Essays
Goldwin Smith
A collection of incisive intellectual inquiries, these essays dissect the moral foundations of history, the evolution of human society, and the enduring tension between individual conscience and the inexorable pull of political power.
Patrins: To Which Is Added an Inquirendo Into the Wit & Other Good Parts of His Late Majesty King Charles the Second
Louise Imogen Guiney
HOOK A series of whimsical, erudite essays wandering through the "thought-country" of late nineteenth-century reflection, finding grace in historical curiosities, forgotten ruins, and the enduring charm of a wayward English king.
The Witch Doctor and other Rhodesian Studies
Frank Worthington
The landscape of colonial-era Rhodesia serves as the stage for a collection of sharp, observational vignettes exploring the collision of disparate cultures and the eccentricities of life on the frontier.
An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
Angelina Emily Grimké
This resonant call to moral action challenges the silence of the privileged, urging women to recognize their power to dismantle systemic injustice through the force of conscience and individual witness.
Ginger-Snaps
Fanny Fern
These sketches offer a sharp-tongued, spirited guide to mid-19th-century American life, proving that a little bit of ginger is the best cure for a dull or overly polite society.
Summer
Dallas Lore Sharp
Nature is not a distant spectacle to be observed through glass, but a living, breathing presence waiting just outside the threshold of our daily lives.
Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas
John Alexander Martin
The rapid, hard-won transformation of a turbulent frontier territory into a prosperous, law-abiding American state is captured here through the immediate, urgent rhetoric of one of its most dedicated public servants.
Elements of Criticism, Volume II
Kames, Henry Home, Lord
The study of human nature is the essential prerequisite for true critical judgment, as the quality of our perceptions dictates the standard by which we measure art, behavior, and the dignity of the human spirit.
How to Do It
Edward Everett Hale
Learning how to move through the world with grace, intention, and competence is a skill that can be cultivated. This collection of essays serves as a practical guide for young people—and the young at heart—on how to master the mundane and significant tasks of daily existence.
Lectures on Russian Literature: Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy
Ivan Panin
The soul strives heavenward through literature, and these lectures serve as milestones on that path, tracing how the intensity of the Russian spirit blazed forth to deliver a message of profound sincerity, earnestness, and love.
State of the Union Addresses
Abraham Lincoln
These addresses chronicle a nation’s existential struggle, mapping the transformation of a fractured, war-torn republic into a unified entity through the force of political will and administrative perseverance.
The Gospel of the Pentateuch: A Set of Parish Sermons
Charles Kingsley
Faith in the living God is not a stagnant tradition, but a dynamic, unfolding education that begins in the earliest chapters of scripture and finds its ultimate expression in the life of Christ.
Armenian Literature: Comprising Poetry, Drama, Folk-lore and Classic Traditions;: Translated into English for the First Time
Robert Arnot
The enduring spirit of an ancient culture survives in this collection of stories, dramas, and proverbs, offering a window into the life, humor, and resilient soul of a long-suffering people.
The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to the Literature, History, Antiquities, Folk Lore, Traditions, and the Social and Material Interests of the Celt at Home and Abroad
Various
The history, folklore, and cultural identity of the Scottish Highlands emerge through the lens of nineteenth-century scholarship and tradition, documenting a world defined by its vanishing past.
The Double Garden
Maurice Maeterlinck
The act of paying close attention to the world—to a dog, a flower, or a machine—is the surest way to bridge the gap between our fragile individual existence and the mysterious forces that govern us.
The shield
Avrahm Yarmolinsky
This collection of essays and narratives serves as a powerful testament to the moral urgency of the Russian intelligentsia, arguing that the nation’s survival depends on the urgent dismantling of state-sanctioned anti-Jewish discrimination.
Unity of Good
Mary Baker Eddy
This foundational work explores the radical proposition that God is entirely good and therefore unconscious of sin, sickness, or death. It challenges the reader to reject material evidence in favor of a spiritual understanding of existence.
From a College Window
Arthur Christopher Benson
Reflective and serene, these essays offer a meditation on how to navigate the complexities of life with sincerity, intellectual honesty, and grace.
Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope
Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount
These collected epistles offer a sharp, polemical defense of a disgraced statesman’s reputation and a series of philosophical meditations on the limits of human knowledge.