A Venetian adventurer, author, and lifelong womanizer, the name of Casanova has become interchangeable with the art of seduction since the 18th century. In his most notable book, «Story of My Life,» Casanova narrates countless tales of the people with whom he interacted: lovers, European royalty, clergymen, and artists such as Goethe, Voltaire, and Mozart. His writing demonstrates his talent for dialogue, while his life seems an inadvertent test ...
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois grew up in a poor but loving home in the small, rural town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He graduated from Fisk University, and from there attended Harvard to earn his doctorate in history. Throughout his life he acted as a teacher, writer, editor and activist, contributing immensely to the African American cause and cofounding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Du Bois ...
"Mary Chestnut's Diary" is a vivid first hand narrative of the Civil War. Written between 1861 and 1865, Mary Chestnut (1823-1886) was married to James Chestnut, Jr., an important Confederate general. Her diaries offer some of our most detailed and personal accounts of one of America's most troubling and conflicted eras. The diary spans the entirety of the war, allowing readers to witness battles both small and large; political, m ...
"A Texas Cowboy" was one of the first true looks into life as a cowboy. Its author, Charles A. Siringo, was born in Dodge City, Kansas and at the age of 15 started working on local ranches as a cowboy and participated over the course of his ranching career in many cattle drives. A highly influential work that romanticized the life of a cowboy and the Old West, Siringo's book tells an autobiographical account of riding the famous Chisho ...
Captain Robert F. Scott's famed expedition to the South Pole from 1910-1912 propelled him in the international spotlight. Scott quickly ascended the ranks in the Royal Navy, becoming a master. His harrowing journey to Antarctica is presented in these journals with unprecedented realism and lucidity. The toils, the troubles, and the successes are brought to life through Scott's pen. His journals create a vivid narrative of his Terra Nov ...
From his boyhood in Ohio to his graduation from West Point, and then into detailed accounts of his service in the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and his presidency, Grant gives a full report of his life and career in this excellent autobiography. Written in the last year of his life as he battled throat cancer and poverty, «Personal Memoirs» was published by Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death, less than a week after he completed h ...
Published in 1861, Harriet Jacobs's «Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl» was one of the first of the personal slave narratives. At the time this book was first published Harriet Jacobs was living as an escaped slave in the North, a precarious position given the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Originally published under the pseudonym Linda Brent, «Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl» is a gripping first hand account of the brutality endured ...
"Twenty Years at Hull House" is the story of the Hull House settlement by its founder Jane Addams. The settlement movement, which gained popularity first in London at the end of the 19th century, soon spread to the United States and was principally involved in improving the lives of the urban poor by providing opportunities for higher education and essential social services. Hull House, one of the most famous of the «settlement houses», was ...
Elizabeth Gaskell's «The Life of Charlotte Bronte» is the official biography of Charlotte Bronte. Having been invited by the Bronte family to undertake the endeavor of writing Charlotte’s biography, Elizabeth Gaskell drew upon an exhaustive collection of letters, interviews of those who knew the author, and recollections of her own experiences with the author, whom she was a personal friend of. Elizabeth Gaskell as a fellow Victorian female ...
