Civil Disobedience - by Henry David Thoreau

Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (US Edition) (UK Edition)

"That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."

If you follow American politics, you might think that is from a recent speech.  Oh yes, it fits right in with politics in the States these days, but wait . . .here is a review from Amazon UK at the end of 2010: “With the current student protests and police using force to quell the situation, 'Civil disobedience' felt the perfect book to pick up and read once more, or in this case, read via kindle.”

This essay is from 1849.  Thoreau was writing at the time of the Mexican-American War and abolitionism.  He did not want his taxes to support what he disagreed with.  That is always a timely topic for discussion.

There are two free editions online.  One has a plain cover and the left justified paragraphing with no line breaks makes it difficult to read.  The other has a creepy drawing of Zombie Thoreau and that one has good formatting!   It breaks the essay up with photos, but it is all there.

Take up the book and the debate.

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Ethan Frome -by Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome is a 1911 novel by Edith Wharton, who is one of those classic authors who has never been forgotten and who seems to be more in favor these days.  (See my previous blogHouse of Mirth.)  (US Edition) (UK Edition) on her novel,

It is a short novel, almost novella length, that has had several movie adaptations.

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. 

If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.

Very satisfying first sentence!  

"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between reminiscent pauses.

[I cut a section out here]

"More'n enough to kill most men. But the Fromes are tough. Ethan'll likely touch a hundred." 

"Good God!" I exclaimed. At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden box—also with a druggist's label on it—which he had placed in the back of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought himself alone. "That man touch a hundred? He looks as if he was dead and in hell now!"

I find this beginning rather gothic.  I don’t think it is going to be a cheery, uplifting novel, but you do not look for that from Ms. Wharton.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

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Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Capturing a Locomotive A History of Secret Service in the Late War by William Pittenger

One of my favorite movies, which I have watched many times, is “The General,” starring Buster Keaton and a locomotive.  It was based on a true story of the American Civil War.  We might call it a “train-jacking” nowadays.

It is a durable and fantastic tale that Disney also made as a movie, much truer to life, “The Great Locomotive Chase.”

Capturing a Locomotive A History of Secret Service in the Late War by William Pittenger published in 1881 must have been heavily relied on for both films. (US Edition) (UK Edition)

In telling the story all fictitious embellishments have been rejected. No pains have been spared to ascertain the exact truth, and the reader will find names, dates, and localities so fully given that it will be easy to verify the prominent features of the account.

In narrating those events which fell under his own eye, the writer has waived all scruples of delicacy, and used the first personal pronoun. This is far more simple and direct, while an opposite course would have savored of affectation.

Scruples of delicacy?  Maybe I had better shift to third person!

William A. Fuller, conductor, Anthony Murphy, manager of the State railroad shops at Atlanta, and Jefferson Cain, engineer, stepped off their locomotive, leaving it unguarded save by the surrounding sentinels, and in perfect confidence took their seats at the breakfast-table at Big Shanty. But before they had tasted a morsel of food the quick ear of Murphy, who was seated with his back towards the window, caught the sound of escaping steam, and he exclaimed, "Fuller, who's moving your train?" Almost simultaneously the latter, who was somewhat of a ladies' man, and was bestowing polite attentions upon two or three fair passengers, saw the same movement, and sprang up, shouting, "Somebody's running off with our train!" No breakfast was eaten then. Everybody rushed through the door to the platform. The train was then fully under way, just sweeping out of sight around the first curve. With quick decision Fuller shouted to Murphy and Cain, "Come on!" and started at a full run after the flying train! This attempt to run down and catch a locomotive by a foot-race seemed so absurd that as the three, at the top of their speed, passed around the same curve, they were greeted with loud laughter and ironical cheers by the excited multitude. To all appearances it was a foolish and hopeless chase.

But the chase does not end here . . .

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World - by Fanny Burney

I know many of us wish there were more Jane Austen to read!  And I don’t mean Lizzie with zombies or re-written (as was just announced) by Joanna Trollope.  (No offense toward Trollope’s other work; I just don’t think Jane needs to be updated to remain appealing as Nancy Drew does.)

Perhaps the next best thing is to read what Austen read and we know she read novels by Fanny Burney who wrote Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World. (US Edition) (UK Edition)

This is from the first part of the novel:

Your Ladyship will not, I am sure, be surprised at this answer. Madame Duval is by no means a proper companion or guardian for a young woman: she is at once uneducated and unprincipled; ungentle in temper, and unamiable in her manners. I have long known that she has persuaded herself to harbour an aversion for me-Unhappy woman! I can only regard her as an object of pity!

It is an epistolary novel with letters flying between all parties.

Miss Mirvan was soon engaged; and presently after a very fashionable gay looking man, who seemed about thirty years of age, addressed himself to me, and begged to have the honour of dancing with me. Now Maria's partner was a gentleman of Mrs. Mirvan's acquaintance; for she had told us it was highly improper for young women to dance with strangers at any public assembly. Indeed it was by no means my wish so to do: yet I did not like to confine myself from dancing at all; neither did I dare refuse this gentleman as I had done Mr. Lovel, and then, if any acquaintance should offer, accept him: and so, all these reasons combining, induced me to tell him-yet I blush to write it to you!-that I was already engaged; by which I meant to keep myself at liberty to a dance, or not, as matters should fall out.

I suppose my consciousness betrayed my artifice, for he looked at me as if incredulous; and, instead of being satisfied with my answer and leaving me, according to my expectation, he walked at my side, and, with the greatest ease imaginable, began a conversation in the free style which only belongs to old and intimate acquaintance. But, what was most provoking, he asked me a thousand questions concerning the partner to whom I was engaged. And at last he said, "Is it really possible that a man whom you have honoured with your acceptance can fail to be at hand to profit from your goodness?"

I felt extremely foolish; and begged Mrs. Mirvan to lead to a seat; which she very obligingly did. The Captain sat next her; and to my great surprise, this gentleman thought proper to follow, and seat himself next to me. "What an insensible!" continued he; "why, Madam, you are missing the most delightful dance in the world!-The man must be either mad or a fool-Which do you incline to think him yourself?"

Indeed!  Read on to find out . . .

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

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Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Way Down East - by Joseph Rhode Grismer

Way Down East: A Romance of New England Life by Joseph Rhode Grismer 

 (US Edition) (UK Edition)

This book may be the first movie tie-in. Originally published as a novel in 1900, this 1920 edition is based on a later play and the blockbuster D.W. Griffith movie starring Lillian Gish.  (There are links to illustrations, but they are missing.  However, you can find and watch the film online.)  It is considered to be Ms. Gish's finest film and she was one of the greatest screen actresses of the silent era.

So what about this book?  It starts out as a promising enough romance:

It was at Mrs. Tremont's that she had met Lennox Sanderson, and from the first, both seemed to be under the influence of some subtle spell that drew them together blindly, and without the consent of their wills. Mrs. Tremont, who viewed the growing attraction of these two young people with well-concealed alarm, watched every opportunity to prevent their enjoying each other's society. It irritated her that one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Harvard should take such a fancy to her penniless young relative, instead of to Grace Tremont, whom she had selected for his wife.

There were few things that Mrs. Tremont enjoyed so much as arranging romances in everyday life.

But the next chapter is titled, "MOCK MARRIAGE."  Oh, trouble . . .

"Anything to please my husband," she answered with a flitting blush. "Your husband? Ah, say it again; it sounds awfully good from you." "So you don't really care for any more coffee, but just want to see my hands among the cups. How appreciative you are!" And there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she began with great elaboration the pantomimic representation of pouring a cup of coffee, adding sugar and cream; and concluded by handing the empty cup to Sanderson. "It would be such a pity to waste the coffee, Lennie, when you only wanted to see my hands."

"If I am not going to have the coffee, I insist on both the hands," he said, taking them and kissing them repeatedly.

Cad!

I find that the more obscure books do not have any reviews on Amazon.  If you can contribute your impression to these obscure, forgotten, once beloved books - please do so!

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Eothen - by Alexander William Kinglake

Eothen, or, Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East by Alexander William Kinglake.

(US Edition) (UK Edition)  

Published in 1844, it is one of the finest examples of travel literature, a genre I love and am well read in; although I have not read very many books from the 1800’s. But I did read and love this book.  It is a marvel.  I have only to show you the beginning and you will know if you are the reader for this book:

At Semlin I still was encompassed by the scenes and the sounds of familiar life; the din of a busy world still vexed and cheered me; the unveiled faces of women still shone in the light of day. Yet, whenever I chose to look southward, I saw the Ottoman’s fortress - austere, and darkly impending high over the vale of the Danube - historic Belgrade. I had come, as it were, to the end of this wheel-going Europe, and now my eyes would see the splendour and havoc of the East.

The two frontier towns are less than a cannon-shot distant, and yet their people hold no communion. The Hungarian on the north, and the Turk and Servian on the southern side of the Save are as much asunder as though there were fifty broad provinces that lay in the path between them. Of the men that bustled around me in the streets of Semlin there was not, perhaps, one who had ever gone down to look upon the stranger race dwelling under the walls of that opposite castle. It is the plague, and the dread of the plague, that divide the one people from the other. All coming and going stands forbidden by the terrors of the yellow flag. If you dare to break the laws of the quarantine, you will be tried with military haste; the court will scream out your sentence to you from a tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest, instead of gently whispering to you the sweet hopes of religion, will console you at duelling distance; and after that you will find yourself carefully shot, and carelessly buried in the ground of the lazaretto.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Beowulf translated by Gummere

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

Beowulf translated by Gummere, 1910. (US Edition) (UK Edition) Tolkien believed Beowulf dated from the 8th century, with is good enough for me!

When I read Beowulf, I get a primal tingling, a sense that my DNA was sitting around a fire in the Great Hall hearing this tale told at a time when fire, a spear and a strong arm might not be sufficient protection against what lurks in the dark beyond the door.  

So lived the clansmen in cheer and revel a winsome life,

till one began to fashion evils, that field of hell.

Grendel this monster grim was called, march-riever {1e} mighty,

in moorland living, in fen and fastness;

fief of the giants the hapless wight a while had kept

since the Creator his exile doomed.

On kin of Cain was the killing avenged

by sovran God for slaughtered Abel.

Ill fared his feud, {1f} and far was he driven,

for the slaughter’s sake, from sight of men.

Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,

Etins {1g} and elves and evil-spirits,

as well as the giants that warred with God

weary while: but their wage was paid them!

The footnotes, which you see in the text are linked to a list of footnotes at the end of the book.  You can easily click back and forth because they are cross-linked.  Here is an example from the text above.

{1e} A disturber of the border, one who sallies from his haunt in the fen and roams over the country near by. This probably pagan nuisance is now furnished with biblical credentials as a fiend or devil in good standing, so that all Christian Englishmen might read about him. “Grendel” may mean one who grinds and crushes.

It was once my pleasure to hear this read in the original language with slides translating to English and with original music performed on an instrument imagined to be like the stringed instrument of the time.  The only thing lacking was mead. 

All poetry is best read out loud, so perhaps you will want to read Beowulf to your cat, who I am sure will take the side of Grendel, or worse, his mother.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Ben-Hur; a tale of the Christ - by Lewis Wallace

Ben-Hur; a tale of the Christ by Lewis Wallace or as I was taught growing up in Indiana, Ben Hur by Lew Wallace, a famous American Civil War general.  This 1880 novel was the best selling American novel until displaced by a book about the Civil War - Gone with the Wind published in 1936.  (US Edition) (UK Edition)

Lew Wallace was one of many celebrated Indiana authors, a state that at one time seemed to produce more authors than any other.  (Can you tell I am a proud Hoosier?)

"I am a Bethlehemite," said Joseph, in his most deliberate way. "Is there not room for--" 

"There is not." 

"You may have heard of me--Joseph of Nazareth. This is the house of my fathers. I am of the line of David." These words held the Nazarene's hope. If they failed him, further appeal was idle, even that of the offer of many shekels. To be a son of Judah was one thing--in the tribal opinion a great thing; to be of the house of David was yet another; on the tongue of a Hebrew there could be no higher boast.

I hope I am not giving away the story to say that he finds somewhere to spend the night.

Later on (this is a long book,) we come to young Ben

"Well, Messala always had his share of the disagreeable quality. When he was a child, I have seen him mock strangers whom even Herod condescended to receive with honors; yet he always spared Judea. For the first time, in conversation with me to-day, he trifled with our customs and God. As you would have had me do, I parted with him finally. And now, O my dear mother, I would know with more certainty if there be just ground for the Roman's contempt. In what am I his inferior? Is ours a lower order of people? Why should I, even in Caesar's presence; feel the shrinking of a slave? Tell me especially why, if I have the soul, and so choose, I may not hunt the honors of the world in all its fields? Why may not I take sword and indulge the passion of war? As a poet, why may not I sing of all themes? I can be a worker in metals, a keeper of flocks, a merchant, why not an artist like the Greek? Tell me, O my mother--and this is the sum of my trouble--why may not a son of Israel do all a Roman may?"

The book is known as a popular success and not a critical success.  Does that make it a bad book?  You decide . . .

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers may go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers may go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.