万本电子书0元读

万本电子书0元读

The Knight of the White Cross
The Knight of the White Cross
G. A. Henty
¥8.09
Historical novel. According to the Preface: "The order of the Knights of St. John, which for some centuries played a very important part in the great struggle between Christianity and Mahomedanism, was, at its origin, a semi-religious body, its members being, like other monks, bound by vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, and pledged to minister to the wants of the pilgrims who flocked to the Holy Places, to receive them at their great Hospital -- or guest house -- at Jerusalem, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and to defend them on their passage to and from the sea, against attack by Moslems. In a comparatively short time the constitution of the order was changed, and the Knights Hospitallers became, like the Templars, a great military Order pledged to defend the Holy Sepulchre, and to war everywhere against the Moslems. The Hospitallers bore a leading share in the struggle which terminated in the triumph of the Moslems, and the capture by them of Jerusalem." According to Wikipedia: "George Alfred Henty (8 December 1832 - 16 November 1902), referred to as G. A. Henty, was a prolific English novelist, special correspondent, and Imperialist born in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, England. He is best known for his historical adventure stories that were popular in the late 19th century. His works include Out on the Pampas (1871), The Young Buglers (1880), With Clive in India (1884) and Wulf the Saxon (1895)."
A Short History of England
A Short History of England
G. K. Chesterton
¥8.09
History as seen by a famous novelist and essayist. The Introduction begins: "It will be very reasonably asked why I should consent, though upon a sort of challenge, to write even a popular essay in English history, who make no pretence to particular scholarship and am merely a member of the public. The answer is that I know just enough to know one thing: that a history from the standpoint of a member of the public has not been written. What we call the popular histories should rather be called the anti-popular histories. They are all, nearly without exception, written against the people; and in them the populace is either ignored or elaborately proved to have been wrong." According to Wikipedia: "Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox." Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out."
Learning to Fly
Learning to Fly
Claude Grahame-White
¥8.09
How to fly an airplane, first published in 1916, with 10 photographs. Helps you understand the challenges of flying WWI era aircraft. According to the Author's Note, "This book is written for the novice—and for the novice who is completely a novice. We have assumed, in writing it, that it will come into the hands of men who, having determined to enter this great and growing industry of aviation, and having decided wisely to learn to fly as their preliminary step, feel they would like to gain beforehand—before, that is to say, they take the plunge of selecting and joining a flying school—all that can be imparted non-technically, and in such a brief manual as this, not only as to the stages of tuition and the tests to be undergone, but also in regard to such general questions as, having once turned their thoughts towards flying, they take a sudden and a very active interest."
Practical Mechanics for Boys
Practical Mechanics for Boys
J. S. Zerbe
¥8.09
Instruction in practical household technology, first published in 1914. 60 black-and-white illustrations. "In language which every boy can understand and so arranged the he may readily carry out any work form the instructions given... This book takes the beginner through a comprehensive series of practical shop work, in which the uses of tools, and the structure and handling of shop machinery are set forth; how they are utilized to perform the work, and the manner in which all dimensional work is carried out. Every subject is illustrated, and model building explained. It contains a glossary which comprises a new system of cross references, a feature that will prove a welcome departure in explaining subjects."
The Keepers of the Trail
The Keepers of the Trail
Joseph Altsheler
¥8.09
Historical novel, part of the Young Trailers series. According to the original publisher "Two boys, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, and three scouts are the chief characters in these books dealing with frontier life and adventures with the Indians about the time of the Revolutionary War. Each story is complete in itself, full of excitement, and historically accurate." In the Keepers of the Trail, "In this book the boys and their comrades defeat a great Indian army and save Kentucky from invasion." According to Wikpedia, "Joseph Alexander Altsheler (April 29, 1862 - June 5, 1919), was an American author of popular juvenile historical fiction."
The Mantle and Other Stories
The Mantle and Other Stories
Nikolai Gogol
¥8.09
This collection includes: The Mantle (AKA The Cloak), The Nose, Memoirs of a Madman, A May Night, and The Viy. According to Wikipedia: "Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (31 March 1809[4] – 4 March 1852[5]) was a Ukrainian-born Russian humorist, dramatist, and novelist. He is considered the father of modern Russian Realism, but, at the same time, his work is very much in the genre of Romanticism. His early works, such as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, were heavily influenced by Ukrainian culture and folklore. His more mature writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire, leading to his exile. After briefly flirting with conversion to Roman Catholicism while in Italy, on his return to Russia Gogol immersed himself in the Russian Orthodox Church. The novels Taras Bul'ba (1835; 1842 [revised edition]) and Dead Souls (1842), the play The Government Inspector (1836, 1842), and the short stories "Diary of a Madman", "The Nose", and "The Overcoat" (1842) are among his best-known works. With their scrupulous and scathing realism, ethical criticism, as well as philosophical depth, they remain some of the most important works ever written."
How It Works
How It Works
Archibald Williams
¥8.09
Manual of how things work, with 233 illustrations, first published around 1905. "Dealing in Simple Language With Steam, Electricity, Light, Heat, Sound Hydraulics, Optics etc." According to Wikipedia: "Archibald Williams (1871-1934) was an English technical journalist and fellow of hte Royal Geographical Society."
The Civilization of Renaissance in Italy
The Civilization of Renaissance in Italy
Jacob Burckhardt
¥8.09
Classic 19th century history book. According to Wikipedia: "Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (May 25, 1818, Basel, Switzerland – August 8, 1897, Basel) was a historian of art and culture, and an influential figure in the historiography of each field. He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history, albeit in a form very different from how cultural history is conceived and studied in academia today. Siegfried Giedion described Burckhardt's achievement in the following terms: "The great discoverer of the age of the Renaissance, he first showed how a period should be treated in its entirety, with regard not only for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but for the social institutions of its daily life as well."Burckhardt's best known work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).
History of the Britons
History of the Britons
Nennius
¥8.09
According to Wikipedia: "Nennius was a Welsh monk of the 9th century. He has traditionally been attributed with the authorship of the Historia Brittonum, based on the prologue affixed to that work, This attribution is widely considered a secondary (10th century) tradition. Nennius was a student of Elvodugus, commonly identified with the bishop Elfodd who convinced British ecclesiastics to accept the Continental dating for Easter, and who died in 809 according to the Annales Cambriae. Nennius is believed to have lived in the area made up by present day Brecknockshire and Radnorshire counties in Powys, Wales. He lived outside the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, isolated by mountains in a rural society."
Maria or the Wrongs of Woman
Maria or the Wrongs of Woman
Mary Wollstonecraft
¥8.09
Novel by the pioneering champion of women's rights (and the mother of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein). According to Wikipedia: "Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman is the 18th century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished novelistic sequel to her revolutionary political treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The Wrongs of Woman was published posthumously in 1798 by her husband, William Godwin, and is often considered her most radical feminist work. Wollstonecraft's philosophical and gothicpatriarchal institution of marriage in eighteenth-century Britain and the legal system that protected it. However, the heroine's inability to relinquish her romantic fantasies also reveals women's collusion in their oppression through false and damaging sentimentalism. The novel pioneered the celebration of female sexuality and cross-class identification between women. Such themes, coupled with the publication of Godwin's scandalous Memoirs of Wollstonecraft's life, made the novel unpopular at the time it was published.Twentieth-century feminist critics embraced the work, integrating it into the history of the novel and feminist discourse. It is most often viewed as a fictionalized popularization of the Rights of Woman, as an extension of Wollstonecraft's feminist arguments in Rights of Woman, and as autobiographical." novel revolves around the story of a woman imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband. It focuses on the societal rather than the individual "wrongs of woman" and criticizes what Wollstonecraft viewed as autobiographical."
Polly Oliver's Problem
Polly Oliver's Problem
Kate Douglas Wiggin
¥8.09
Novel for children and teens. According to Wikipedia: "Kate Douglas Wiggin ( 1856 - 1923) was an American children's author and educator. Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin was born in Philadelphia, and was of Welsh descent. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). With her sister in the 1880s she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers. She was also a writer of children's books, the best known being The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903)."
New Treasure Seekers
New Treasure Seekers
Edith Nesbit
¥8.09
Novel for children. According to Wikipedia: "Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a precursor to the modern Labour Party.... Nesbit published approximately 40 books for children, both novels and collections of stories. Collaborating with others, she published almost as many more. According to her biographer Julia Briggs, Nesbit was "the first modern writer for children": "(Nesbit) helped to reverse the great tradition of children's literature inaugurated by [Lewis] Carroll, [George] MacDonald and Kenneth Grahame, in turning away from their secondary worlds to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels." Briggs also credits Nesbit with having invented the children's adventure story. Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1898) and The Wouldbegoods (1899), which both recount stories about the Bastables, a middle class family that has fallen on relatively hard times. Her children's writing also included numerous plays and collections of verse. She created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds."
The Shuttle
The Shuttle
Frances Hodgson Burnett
¥8.09
Novel for children. According to Wikipedia: "Frances Hodgson Burnett, ( 1849 - 1924) was an English–American playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Born Frances Eliza Hodgson in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, her father died in 1854, and the family had to endure poverty and squalor in the Victorian slums of Manchester. Following the death of her mother in 1867, an 18-year-old Frances was now the head of a family of four younger siblings. She turned to writing to support them all, with a first story published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1868. Soon after she was being published regularly in Godey's, Scribner's Monthly, Peterson's Ladies' Magazine and Harper's Bazaar. Her main writing talent was combining realistic detail of working-class life with a romantic plot. Her first novel was published in 1877; That Lass o' Lowrie's was a story of Lancashire life. After moving with her husband to Washington, D.C., Burnett wrote the novels Haworth's (1879), Louisiana (1880), A Fair Barbarian (1881), and Through One Administration (1883), as well as a play, Esmeralda (1881), written with William Gillette...Her later works include Sara Crewe (1888) - later rewritten as A Little Princess (1905); The Lady of Quality (1896) - considered one of the best of her plays; and The Secret Garden (1909), the children's novel for which she is probably best known today. The Lost Prince was published in 1915..."
The Imitation of Christ
The Imitation of Christ
thomas a Kempis
¥8.09
According to Wikipedia: "The Imitation of Christ (Latin: De Imitatione Christi) by Thomas à Kempis is a Christian devotional book. It was first composed in Latin ca.1418-1427.[1][2] It is a handbook for spiritual life arising from the Devotio Moderna movement, where Kempis was a member.[3] The Imitation is perhaps the most widely read devotional work next to the Bible,[2][4] and is regarded as a devotional and religious classic
The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett
¥8.09
Novel for children. Burnett's best known book. According to Wikipedia: "The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in the autumn of 1910, and was first published in its entirety in 1911. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's literature. Several stage and film adaptations have been produced.... Frances Hodgson Burnett, ( 1849 - 1924) was an English–American playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Born Frances Eliza Hodgson in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, her father died in 1854, and the family had to endure poverty and squalor in the Victorian slums of Manchester. Following the death of her mother in 1867, an 18-year-old Frances was now the head of a family of four younger siblings. She turned to writing to support them all, with a first story published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1868. Soon after she was being published regularly in Godey's, Scribner's Monthly, Peterson's Ladies' Magazine and Harper's Bazaar. Her main writing talent was combining realistic detail of working-class life with a romantic plot. Her first novel was published in 1877; That Lass o' Lowrie's was a story of Lancashire life. After moving with her husband to Washington, D.C., Burnett wrote the novels Haworth's (1879), Louisiana (1880), A Fair Barbarian (1881), and Through One Administration (1883), as well as a play, Esmeralda (1881), written with William Gillette...Her later works include Sara Crewe (1888) - later rewritten as A Little Princess (1905); The Lady of Quality (1896) - considered one of the best of her plays; and The Secret Garden (1909), the children's novel for which she is probably best known today. The Lost Prince was published in 1915..."
A Monk of Fife
A Monk of Fife
Andrew Lang
¥8.09
Novelized retelling of a medieval romance. According to Wikipedia: "Andrew Lang (March 31, 1844, Selkirk - July 20, 1912, Banchory, Kincardineshire) was a prolific Scots man of letters. He was a poet, novelist, and literary critic, and contributor to anthropology. He now is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales."
A Little Tour in France
A Little Tour in France
Henry James
¥8.09
Observations by Henry James from travel in France. According to Wikipedia: "Henry James, (1843 – 1916), son of theologian Henry James Sr., brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James, was an American-born British author. He is one of the key figures of 19th century literary realism; the fine art of his writing has led many academics to consider him the greatest master of the novel and novella form. He spent much of his life in England and became a British subject shortly before his death. He is primarily known for a series of major novels in which he portrayed the encounter of America with Europe. His plots centered on personal relationships, the proper exercise of power in such relationships, and other moral questions. His method of writing from the point of view of a character within a tale allowed him to explore the phenomena of consciousness and perception, and his style in later works has been compared to impressionist painting."
Eugenie Grandet
Eugenie Grandet
Honore de Balzac
¥8.09
One of Balzac's finest novels. According to Wikipedia: "Honore de Balzac (May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850) was a nineteenth-century French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comedie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815. Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities."
Father Goriot
Father Goriot
Honore de Balzac
¥8.09
One of Balzac's finest novels. According to Wikipedia: "Honore de Balzac (May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850) was a nineteenth-century French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comedie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815. Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities."
Romola
Romola
George Eliot
¥8.09
One of George Eliot's seven classic novels. She is best known for Middlemarch, Silas Marner, and The Mill on the Floss. According to Wikipedia: "Mary Ann (Marian) Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological perspicacity. She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure that her works were taken seriously. Female authors published freely under their own names, but Eliot wanted to ensure that she was not seen as merely a writer of romances. An additional factor may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes."
Mock Gothic Novels: Northanger Abbey and Nightmare Abbey
Mock Gothic Novels: Northanger Abbey and Nightmare Abbey
Jane Austen, Thomas Love Peacock
¥8.09
According to Wikipedia: "Northanger Abbey is fundamentally a parody of Gothic fiction. Austen turns the conventions of eighteenth-century novels on their head, by making her heroine a plain and undistinguished girl from a middle-class family, allowing the heroine to fall in love with the hero before he has a serious thought of her, and exposing the heroine's romantic fears and curiosities as groundless." "Nightmare Abbey is a Gothic topical satire in which the author pokes light-hearted fun at the romantic movement in contemporary English literature, in particular its obsession with morbid subjects, misanthropy and transcendental philosophical systems. Most of the characters in the novel are based on historical figures whom Peacock wishes to pillory."