This is the first edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature." Published anonymously in 1836, it is his first essay and is considered to be the foundation text for the American Transcendentalist movement. Emerson puts forth the concept that the divine spirit is universally present within all things and all aspects of nature. He believes that through nature, humans acquire all of their physical and spiritual needs. He divides his essay into several different...

Relates the adventures of Ben Brown, his performing poodle Sancho, and the two young girls who feed and care for them after the boy and dog run away from the circus.

This daring tale of revenge and exotic intrigue is demonstrative of Stevenson's broad range and unique genius. "The Master of Ballantrae", first published in 1889, follows the conflict between two Scottish brothers of noble origins during the tumultuous Jacobite Risings of 1745. Greed and envy threaten to tear the brothers apart as a race for the family inheritance intensifies. James Durie, the protagonist and Master of Ballantrae, is as charming...

Mattie J. T. Stepanek lived and died a child, but he had the spirit of a giant. Affected by a rare and fatal neuromuscular disease, Mattie lived almost fourteen years but in that time became a poet, best-selling author, peace activist, and a prominent voice for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Before his death in June 2004, his five volumes of Heartsongs poetry sold more than a million copies. Reflections of a Peacemaker: A Portrait Through...

Louisa May Alcott created a story that impresses through its simplicity and is able to help teenagers regain their trust and self-confidence even today. Exploring themes that revolve around family issues, being disregarded and rejected by friends, and the struggles of a young girl in the big city, An Old-Fashioned Girl is a tale that girls and women are able to closely identify with, many having been able to find solace in Alcott's fascinating and...

"The "Fresh Air" book critic investigates the enduring power of The Great Gatsby -- "The Great American Novel we all think we've read, but really haven't." Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece...

In the story of Dick Heldar, artist and special correspondent for the London newspapers, and of the rise and decline of his fortunes, Kipling charts 'the slow draining of a man's power' with frightening conviction. Orphaned in childhood, already a vetran of the Nile Campaign in his early twenties, Heldar's greatest chance for happiness seems to lie with Maisie, friend of his boyhood and a fellow painter. Although at first she rejects his love his...

A Boy's Will (1913) is a collection of poems by American poet Robert Frost. Published in London and dedicated to the poet's wife, Elinor, A Boy's Will, which received enthusiastic early reviews from both Ezra Pound and W.B. Yeats, launched Frost's career as America's leading poet of the early-twentieth century. Invoking such figures as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, and Thomas Hardy, Frost ties himself to tradition while establishing...

A Modern Utopia is a novel by H. G. Wells. Because of the complexity and sophistication of its narrative structure A Modern Utopia has been called "not so much a modern as a postmodern utopia." The novel is best known for its notion that a voluntary order of nobility known as the Samurai could effectively rule a "kinetic and not static" world state so as to solve "the problem of combining progress with political stability." To this planet "out beyond...

Falsely accused of theft, Silas Marner is cut off from his community but finds refuge in the village of Raveloe, where he is eyed with distant suspicion. Like a spider from a fairy-tale, Silas fills fifteen monotonous years with weaving and accumulating gold. The son of the wealthy local Squire, Godfrey Cass also seeks an escape from his past. One snowy winter, two events change the course of their lives: Silas's gold is stolen and, a child crawls...