Barnes Noble: 2826 books

Subtitled “Personal and Biographical Sketches of Well-Known American Writers,” this collection includes chapters on George Bancroft, George Washington Cable, William Dean Howells, Francis Parkman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and many others. The Gilders were well connected in the literary...

This 1862 volume contains two of MacDonald's fairy stories.  In the first, the Queen of Fairyland determines to bring two mortals to her realm in order to provide some excitement, and in the second, a mortal, Ralph Rinkelmann, is elected king of the fairies.

Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) was a British humorist and travel writer. As an actor, journalist, and short story writer, he had little luck for much of his early career. He is best known for the charming and often hilarious Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), an account of a laconic boating expedition, based on a similar trip he and his wife took.

In his dedication page to Stage-Land (published in 1889), Jerome K. Jerome writes: “To that highly respectable but unnecessarily retiring individual of whom we hear so much but see so little, the earnest student of the drama, this (comparatively) truthful little book is lovingly dedicated.”  He...

In the title story—adapted by the author into a successful play—a mysterious, Christ-like stranger visits a run-down boarding home and transforms the lives of its residents. Other selections in this 1904 collection are “The Philosopher’s Joke,” “The Soul of Nicholas Snyders,” “Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies,” “The Cost of Kindness,” and “The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl.”

Undertaken at the suggestion of a friend, here is Jerome’s attempt to write a sensible book. The pilgrimage of the title is Jerome’s journey to Germany to see the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau. Part diary, part travelogue, and part social commentary, it is entirely entertaining, as are the six comic essays.

Published in 1881, this delightful and insightful travelogue takes readers off the beaten track and into the high, remote places of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, where forgotten masterpieces of sacred art and architecture await discovery. 

In his seminal and controversial work in defense of abstract art, renowned critic Clive Bell argues that “aesthetic emotion” is a response to the “significant form” of a work of art, the forms and relations of art itself; any other meaning or association the piece of art holds is irrelevant.  

Published in 1887, Imaginary Portraits consists of four studies of fictional characters in historical settings.  They are notable not only as illustrations of Pater's aesthetic theories but as influential works of literature. The characters include “A Prince of Court Painters,” set in Valenciennes...

This posthumous 1895 collection brings together, from many different journals and magazines, Pater’s influential and wide-ranging writings. The contents include “Prosper Mérimée,” “Raphael,” “Pascal,” “Art Notes in Northern Italy,” “Notre-Dame d’Amiens,” “Vézelay,” “Apollo...

Rail interests tried to suppress Russell’s muckraking accounts of the industry even before they were published. This 1912 collection of magazine articles about monopoly, financial speculation, mismanagement, price-fixing, and cavalier neglect of worker safety includes “The Romance of Death Avenue,” “Speaking of Widows and Orphans,” and “What the Law Does for Us.”

The eminent economist and historian turns his eye toward the battles of Bunker Hill, Long Island, and New Orleans, as well as the Revolutionary campaign of 1777. This work includes several chapters on the Civil War, including a look at the conflict from Queen Victoria’s royal perspective.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is one of the most important and influential works in American history. It tells the story of Franklin's life from his humble beginnings to his emergence as a leading figure in the American colonies. In the process, it creates a portrait of Franklin as the quintessential...

John Randolph, known as John Randolph of Roanoke, represented Virginia in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and once famously stated, “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty; I hate equality.” Ideal for history buffs, Henry Adams’s biography of this prominent politician examines Randolph’s...