Grimm's Fairy Tales - by the Brothers Grimm

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

Grimm's Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm is a well known book of children's  stories not really for children.  (US Edition)  (UK Edition)  The German brother published the collection in 1812 and followed it up with subsequent collections, some more bowdlerized than others.  This collection has a story from the 1812 collection, so I assume that is what this is.

From "The Blue Light:"

. . . he summoned the little black manikin and said: 'I have served the king faithfully, but he has dismissed me, and left me to hunger, and now I want to take my revenge.' 'What am I to do?' asked the little man. 'Late at night, when the king's daughter is in bed, bring her here in her sleep, she shall do servant's work for me.' The manikin said: 'That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very dangerous thing for you, for if it is discovered, you will fare ill.'

Does he?  I couldn't put the story down until I found out.

Other stories are more familiar, although told perhaps in a bolder style that those I read to elementary aged children.

and the children heard their mother saying at night to their father: 'Everything is eaten again, we have one half loaf left, and that is the end. The children must go, we will take them farther into the wood, so that they will not find their way out again; there is no other means of saving ourselves!' The man's heart was heavy, and he thought: 'It would be better for you to share the last mouthful with your children.' The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to say, but scolded and reproached him.

Here is a one star Amazon Reader review that sums it up despite the negative review:

"Ordered this out of curiosity. You can see the origins of many of the Disney movies. But..... wow. Some of these stories were very twisted and weird."

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.

The French Revolution A Short History - by Robert Matteson Johnston

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

After recently re-reading A Tale of Two Cities, I was thinking it would be good to have a history of the French Revolution.  Of course I looked for a free classic Kindle book and I found The French Revolution A Short History by Robert Matteson Johnston, an American historian born in Paris and educated in England. (US Edition)  (UK Edition) 

The first course sets us nicely on course for what sounds like a very readable history:

The magnitude of an event is too apt to lie with its reporter, and the reporter often fails in his sense of historical proportion. The nearer he is to the event the more authority he has as a witness, but the less authority as a judge. It is time alone can establish the relation and harmony of things. This is notably the case with the greatest event of modern European history, the French Revolution, and the first task of the historian writing a century later, is to attempt to catch its perspective. To do this the simplest course will be to see how the Revolution has been interpreted from the moment of its close to the present day.

Here is another passage:

The event was so great, the shock was so severe, that from that day to this France has continued to reel and rock from the blow. It is only within the most recent years that we can see going on under our eyes the last oscillations, the slow attainment of the new democratic equilibrium. The end is not yet, but what that end must eventually be now seems clear beyond a doubt. The gradual political education and coming to power of the masses is a process that is the logical outcome of the Revolution; and the joining of hands of a wing of the intellectuals with the most radical section of the working men, is a sign of our times not lightly to be passed over. From Voltaire before the Revolution to Anatole France, at {10} the present day, the tradition and development is continuous and logical.

I do not know how short a history it is at almost 300 pages - but it is certainly readable and all books weigh the same on a Kindle!

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.

Pride and Prejudice - by Jane Austen

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

No, I am not going to quote the famous first line.  You will just have to download Pride and Prejudice and read it for yourself!  (US Edition)  (UK Edition)  

This novel by the beloved English writer, Jane Austen, was first published in 1813 and has never fallen out of favor or lost its popularity. It is always wonderful to realize how much we have in common with those who lived 200 years ago. If we can laugh at the same things, how different can we be? 

There are few characters in literature as funny as Mr. Collins who fancies himself a skilled flatterer - adept at correcting any misstep. 

"The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and [Mr. Collins] begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellence of its cookery was owing. But here he was set right by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He begged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologise for about a quarter of an hour."

So immerse yourself once again in the society of the Bennet girls with their interest in balls and the activities of the regiment. And if you are reading this book for the first time, you are to be envied the pleasure of discovering one of the world's great novels. Great because it is funny, surprising, romantic and up-to-date, all at the same time.

A reader in 1813 said:

I have finished the novel called Pride and Prejudice, which I think a very superior work. It depends not on any of the common resources of novel writers, no drownings, no conflagrations, nor runaway horses, nor lap-dogs and parrots, nor chambermaids and milliners, nor rencontres and disguises. I really think it is the most probable I have ever read.

 Here, here!  Still "probable" after all these years, and if I might add, no zombies! 

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.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

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.

The Wreck of the Titan or, Futility - by Morgan Robertson

Free US/UK Kindle Classic published
years before the Titanic sank and
predicting its fate!

Long winter nights lend themselves to contemplation.  Sometimes that contemplation is of inexplicable coincidence.  How is it, for example, that a book could be written about an unsinkable ship, the Titan, which hit an iceberg and sank with insufficient lifeboats?  Easy you say, there have been thousands of riffs on the sinking of the Titanic!  Yes, but only one was written years before the sinking . . .

The Wreck of the Titan or, Futility by American author Morgan Robertson was a short novel written 14 years before the Titanic sank. (US Edition)  (UK Edition)  

 It was originally titled Futility and was published in 1898.  It was republished after the Titanic sinking with this updated title, but the only change was to bring the Titan's tonnage in line with the Titanic.  The other similarities to the Titanic, right down to the watertight compartments, were in the original edition. 

I often owe a debt to Wikipedia.  After you read the book, see their compilation of these coincidences.  SPOILER ALERT, you have to page past a plot summary on Wikipedia to read about the many similarities between the Titan's fate and the Titanic's sad ending.

And while I am giving Wikipedia credit, see also the fascinating article on the author, Morgan Robertson, who was a sailor who saw how a ship called "unsinkable" could be overcome by an ice berg.  It is not unthinkable that a passenger on the Titanic might have brought this book aboard. 
Perhaps a foreboding overtook them and they set this book aside . . .

From the bridge, engine-room, and a dozen places on her deck the ninety-two doors of nineteen water-tight compartments could be closed in half a minute by turning a lever. These doors would also close automatically in the presence of water. With nine compartments flooded the ship would still float, and as no known accident of the sea could possibly fill this many, the steamship Titan was considered practically unsinkable.

Shivers . . .

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.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

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.