Free summaries
Essays, Letters & Speeches — page 29
1,728 public-domain essays, letters & speeches books, summarised. Page 29 of 36.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832
Various
A window into the vibrant print culture of 1832, this miscellany captures a world balancing ancient traditions, romantic poetry, and rapid technological transformation.
![Cover of The Voice of Faith in the Valley of Achor: Vol. 1 [of 2]: being a series of letters to several friends on religious subjects](https://cdn.myebooksbuy.com/c/the-voice-of-faith-in-the-valley-of-achor-vol-1-of-2-being-a-series-of.webp)
The Voice of Faith in the Valley of Achor: Vol. 1 [of 2]: being a series of letters to several friends on religious subjects
J. (John) Church
Through the iron bars of imprisonment, an outcast minister turns his private cellar of despair into a fortress of unyielding, sovereign faith.
When a Man Comes to Himself
Woodrow Wilson
A quiet, transformative awakening awaits anyone willing to step outside the narrow circle of self-interest and measure their true place within the wider human community.
In the Firing Line: Stories of the War by Land and Sea
Arthur St. John Adcock
The frontline exposes human nature at its most raw, where ordinary men face catastrophic machinery with gallows humor, sudden courage, and deep camaraderie.
Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 88, July 5, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
An obscure manuscript in a fallen duke’s pocket, a centuries-old tale of a London porter turned pontiff, and the proper way to preserve the dead with salt all converge in a lively Victorian intellectual exchange.
Observations of a Retired Veteran
Henry C. Tinsley
A small-town Virginia editor transforms the quiet observations of his sickbed and daily strolls into warm, sharply observed meditations on human nature, aging, and the quiet dignity of ordinary life.
Old Wine and New: Occasional Discourses
Joseph Cross
A collection of mid-nineteenth-century pulpit addresses balances traditional Christian orthodoxy with lush rhetorical art, urging believers to exchange rigid ritualism for an intimate, personal relationship with the divine.
State of the Union Addresses
Woodrow Wilson
A leader guides his country through peace, global war, and messy recovery while defining a nation's modern role on the world stage.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 369, May 9, 1829
Various
A vibrant weekly miscellany captures the restless intellectual and cultural appetite of early nineteenth-century London, blending architectural critique, social satire, and historical oddities.
Notes and Queries, Number 177, March 19, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
A dense, Victorian tapestry of scholarly debates, folk customs, and historical mysteries shows how an eager community of correspondents pieced together the past through collective curiosity.
Proof-reading
F. Horace (Francis Horace) Teall
A passionate, sharp-witted defense of the print shop's most crucial worker, this volume transforms the dry mechanics of text revision into a battle for linguistic clarity and professional respect.
Remarks of Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina on the bill to prevent the interference of certain federal officers in elections: delivered in the Senate of the United States February 22, 1839
John C. (John Caldwell) Calhoun
A fierce defense of state sovereignty frames federal overreach as an existential threat to constitutional liberty and economic fairness.
Small Talk at Wreyland. Second Series
Cecil Torr
An observant Devon country gentleman weaves local lore, antiquarian scholarship, and family memories into a quietly captivating portrait of rural English continuity.
A happy half-century, and other essays
Agnes Repplier
A witty, affectionate look at 18th- and 19th-century British intellectual life, from the rise of the novel to the cult of childhood, by a sharp-eyed observer of human folly.
If, Yes and Perhaps: Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact
Edward Everett Hale
Bound by the tether of an unforgiving oath, a young officer learns what it means to be stripped from his nation’s memory and erased from the map of the world he loved.
Benjamin Franklin and the First Balloons
Benjamin Franklin
A witness to the dawn of flight, a legendary statesman watches as humanity first slips the bonds of gravity to ascend into the clouds.
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, February, 1880
Various
This journal presents a collection of late nineteenth-century essays that fiercely defend biblical orthodoxy against the encroaching tide of Darwinism, atheism, and secular philosophy. It serves as a time capsule of the intellectual skirmishes that defined religious discourse in 1880.
The Curse of Education
Harold Edward Gorst
Modern schooling acts as a mechanical press, flattening unique human minds into a uniform, mediocre shape. By forcing children into a rigid, one-size-fits-all curriculum, society systematically destroys individual genius and prepares youth for lives of frustration and incompetence.
The southern literary messenger, Vol. II., No. 9, August, 1836
Various
This collection captures the intellectual pulse of the 1830s, gathering essays, poetry, and political discourse into a single, vibrant portrait of an era’s preoccupation with history, governance, and the soul.
"'Tis Sixty Years Since": Address of Charles Francis Adams
Charles Francis Adams
Reflecting on a lifetime of public service, a seasoned observer examines the profound shifts in American society, politics, and technology that occurred between the mid-nineteenth century and the early twentieth century.
Everyday Americans
Henry Seidel Canby
This examination of the American character, written in the wake of the First World War, explores the enduring tension between the nation's inherited idealism and its entrenched, cautious conservatism. It asks whether a society built on the promise of freedom can overcome its own resistance to change.
On reading in relation to literature
Lafcadio Hearn
True reading is not the passive consumption of words, but an active, disciplined exercise of the intellect that transforms the reader as much as it reveals the text. Mastering this art requires patience, discrimination, and the courage to engage only with the best.
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 723: November 3, 1877
Various
This late-Victorian periodical offers a panoramic view of the nineteenth-century world, blending urgent social commentary on language and industry with sentimental fiction and curious trivia. It serves as a fascinating time capsule of the intellectual and social preoccupations of 1877.
Henry Gally
Henry Gally
A refined critical manual details how to capture the living truths of human character without falling into exaggeration or cheap verbal wit.
Reveries of a Schoolmaster
Francis B. (Francis Bail) Pearson
An experienced teacher sits by an evening fire, looking back across a lifetime in the classroom and looking out at a world full of quiet beauty, human absurdity, and untamed potential.
A Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays
Richard Mead
A rigorous, early-eighteenth-century attempt to explain the mechanics of toxins through physical law rather than occult mystery, shifting the study of venom into the realm of observable, observable anatomy.
Notes and Queries, Number 138, June 19, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This is a collaborative archive of nineteenth-century curiosity, functioning as a sprawling, printed conversation where scholars and enthusiasts exchange hard-won facts and lingering mysteries. It serves as a static snapshot of an intellectual community gathering around the nascent idea that no piece of historical…
'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!'
Mary Roberts Rinehart
Two affectionate, lighthearted essays trade gentle barbs to expose how men and women navigate daily life, fashion, and each other.
Peregrine in France: A Lounger's Journal, in Familiar Letters to His Friend
William Bromet
In the wake of Napoleon’s final defeat, a curious British officer traverses a transformed France. His dispatches offer an intimate, unvarnished window into the daily life of a nation caught between imperial memory and a fragile peace.
The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1: December, 1906
Various
This collection of literature serves as a pedagogical toolkit for the art of public speaking, offering a diverse array of dramatic, oratorical, and narrative selections meant for recitation and performance. It emphasizes the development of the speaker's will and the mastery of expression, drawing from historical…
![Cover of Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 4 [April 1902]: Illustrated by Color Photography](https://cdn.myebooksbuy.com/c/birds-and-nature-vol-11-no-4-april-1902-illustrated-by-color.webp)
Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 4 [April 1902]: Illustrated by Color Photography
Various
Nature enthusiasts and amateur naturalists will find a charming, atmospheric window into the early twentieth-century American obsession with the wild world. These pages capture the spirit of an era when birding was shifting from collection to observation.
Godliness
Catherine Mumford Booth
The path to spiritual transformation is not paved with good intentions or intellectual debate, but with the painful, deliberate surrender of the self to an uncompromising divine standard.
Psychical Miscellanea: Being Papers on Psychical Research, Telepathy, Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc
J. Arthur (John Arthur) Hill
Seeking an objective window into the unseen, this collection navigates the boundary between scientific rigor and the enduring human hope for life beyond the physical veil.
The Novel
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
This volume functions as a manifesto on the art of fiction, defining the novelist’s role as a creator of portable dramas meant to captivate the human heart. It serves as both a professional creed and a practical guide for the reader.
A Christmas Gift to the American Home and the Youth of America
N. P. (Niels Peter) Gravengaard
Hook In an age of global upheaval, a pastoral voice calls for a return to the simplicity of faith, urging the individual to find peace through devotion and the sacrificial love of a child.
Australian Writers
Desmond Byrne
This survey of Australian literature captures a young nation’s struggle to find its own voice while casting off the long shadow of English traditions. It serves as a vital historical lens into how colonial life, landscape, and identity were first translated into fiction.
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880
Various
This journal argues that the foundations of the Christian faith are reinforced, rather than challenged, by the rigorous application of scientific observation and common-sense logic.
An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams
Pierre Nicole
True beauty in literature is never a matter of fleeting fashion or mere cleverness, but of a permanent alignment with human nature.
The Call of the Twentieth Century, an Address to Young Men
David Starr Jordan
The twentieth century arrives with a call for men of purpose, demanding not the hollow glory of the past, but the disciplined, truth-seeking labor of the present. Your future depends entirely on the stewardship of your own potential.
The works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A., Vol. 6 (of 6)
George Whitefield
An impassioned voice from the eighteenth-century pulpit, this collection captures the fervor of a preacher who saw the world as a threshold to eternity and every sermon as a final, desperate plea for salvation.
A Jayhawker in Europe
W. Y. (William Yoast) Morgan
A Kansas newspaperman takes his readers on a brisk, unpretentious tour of 1911 Europe, trading high-minded sentiment for sharp observations on local customs, daily life, and the undeniable comforts of home.
Modern Fiction
Charles Dudley Warner
This incisive inquiry into the state of literature argues that the highest calling of the novel is not the mere mechanical recording of life, but the artistic transformation of it. It serves as a stern yet hopeful manifesto for the power of the storyteller’s craft.
The works of Richard Hurd, volume 8 (of 8)
Richard Hurd
A rigorous intellectual defense of the Church of England, this collection captures the formal, exacting mind of a high-ranking cleric navigating the turbulent political and theological waters of the eighteenth century.
Tracts and Handbills of the Religious Tract Society, March 1st, 1843
Religious Tract Society (Great Britain)
A ledger of spiritual instruction, this catalog maps a vast, mid-nineteenth-century effort to distribute moral guidance to the masses, from the docks of London to the corners of the globe.
Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry: From Poems On Several Occasions (1707)
Samuel Cobb
True poetic genius demands total freedom, leaving slavish adherence to rules and pedantic critics behind in the mud.
From an Easy Chair
Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
The world is filled with wonders waiting to be understood, and this collection of essays invites readers to explore the intricate, often invisible, mechanisms of nature from the comfort of a quiet room.
Good citizenship
Grover Cleveland
Patriotism is not merely a matter of holiday celebrations or battlefield bravery, but a lifelong commitment to the quiet, daily duties of an upright and engaged citizenry.
The constitution violated
Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler
Legal authority over the human body is the central battleground where the liberties of the individual clash against the encroaching reach of the state. This examination exposes the profound constitutional dangers hidden within legislative attempts to regulate morality.