Artisan: 415 books

“Cicero was 'almost a Christian, even before the coming of Christ…' Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was an orator, statesman, philosopher and writer, who rose in Rome in the turbulent last years of its republican government. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. Anthony...

Apocalypse The Plague Tales By Mary Shelley Jack London Richard Jefferies Daniel Defoe Back in 1826 a novel was written, The Last Man—that tells the story of humanity’s downfall in the 21st century. Scenes of horror increase by the...

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS (1883-1963) One of the most original and widely imitated poets of the twentieth century, William Carlos Williams wrote verse firmly rooted in the details of everyday life. A practicing physician for more than 40 years, Williams worked in the idiom of modern American speech...

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin recounts the life of one of the most accomplished Founding Fathers of the United States; the runaway printer’s apprentice who became, over the course of his eighty-four-years, America’s most skilled inventor, writer, media baron, scientist, diplomat, and...

''Amazingly, more than 150 years after the publication of On The Origin of Species, Darwin's seminal work on the theory of evolution remains the authoritative tract on the subject.'' —Library Journal ''It is clear that On The Origin of Species is one of the most important contributions ever...

One of the most practical and popular guides to the settlement of the Old West was Randolph B. Marcy's The Prairie Traveler, published in 1859. A captain in the U.S. army, Marcy wrote The Prairie Traveler partly to allay the many myths and fears of the Western frontier, and partly to offer...

Upon its publication in 1901, Up From Slavery became one of the most significant books ever written by an African American. As one of a handful of classic American autobiographies, its place in history is assured. Booker T. Washington, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the...

We are so accustomed to regarding Stephen Crane as an almost matchless describer of battle scenes that it seems novel to encounter him in a work that is essentially historical in character. The book is made up of eight sketches, each devoted to a historical conflict of arms. The author's...

True Detective Stories, From the Archives of the Pinkertons, originally published in 1893, is the classic collection of six true crime stories from two centuries ago. The Northampton Bank Robbery The Susquehanna Express Robbery The Pollock Diamond Robbery The Rock Island...

The names William Bligh, Fletcher Christian, and the Bounty have excited the popular imagination for more than two hundred years. Here is the full text of Captain Bligh's personal journal entries aboard the Bounty. The tale of this infamous mutiny began near the island known today...

First published in 1883, “The Story of My Heart” is a book by English nature writer Richard Jefferies. It is often described as a “spiritual autobiography”, within which Jefferies envisions the English countryside as a utopia. The foundation of his narrative is his experience of nature,...

The heritage of literature in the French language is rich, varied, extensive in time and space, and appealing both to its immediate public—readers of French—and also to a global audience reached today through translations and film adaptations. In its breadth, depth, and sophistication of...

        Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could and I would. And I did. —Nellie Bly   Ten Days in a Mad-House is the true account by female journalist Nellie Bly as she took...

The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi is the biography of the nineteenth-century English actor, comedian and clown who became the most popular English entertainer of the Regency era. Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) was a phenomenon in his time, a national treasure—the toast of England and a household...