Essays & Short Works
- Philosophical Travelogues
- Essays on Society and Culture
- Essays for Personal Growth
- Explorations in Science and Thought
- Explorations in Psychology
- Political Essays and Reflections
- Political Essays and Manifestos
- Philosophical Essays on Existence
The Shining Pyramid
For the first time ever, the complete contents of both the 1923 and 1925 editions of The Shining Pyramid are brought together in a single co…
Is Shakespeare Dead?
A short, semi-autobiographical work by American humorist Mark Twain. It explores the controversy over the authorship of the Shakespearean li…
A Theology of Sexuality
All kinds of preaching has been done about what sex should not be and advising people to wait. But what do the Scriptures say sex should be?…
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
This is Mark Twain's vicious and amusing review of Fenimore Cooper's literary art. It is still read widely in academic circles. Twain's essa…
An Essay on Criticism
An Essay on Criticism is a foundational work of literary criticism by Alexander Pope, blending poetry and philosophical reflection. Written …
Of All Things
Of All Things is a witty collection of essays by Robert C. Benchley that takes a humorous look at the absurdities of everyday life. With a k…
The Crimes of England
"Second, when telling such lies as may seem necessary to your international standing, do not tell the lies to the people who know the t…
Short Nonfiction Collection
A collection of fifteen short nonfiction works in the public domain. The essays, speeches and reports included in this collection were inde…
Magna Carta Commemoration Essays
On 15th June 1215 the Magna Carta was sealed under oath by King John at Runnymede, on the bank of the River Thames near Windsor, England. 20…
Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens
“These papers were originally published as prefaces to the separate books of Dickens in one of the most extensive of those cheap libraries o…
American Notes
In American Notes, Rudyard Kipling, the Nobel Prize-winning author of the Jungle Book, visits the USA. As the travel-diary of an Anglo-India…
A Square Deal
Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt became the 26th president of the United States when president William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. As the …
France At War
In 1915, as the "Great War" (World War 1) entered its second year Rudyard Kipling made a journalistic tour of the front, visiting …
The Mysterious Universe
One of the earliest of the popular science book genre, it is a philosophical summary of the new physics of the era by a leading British phys…
Letters of Oscar Wilde
This second collection of the correspondence of Oscar Wilde includes letters written when the Irish playwright was at the height of his succ…
The Silence Dogood Letters
As a teenager, Benjamin Franklin apprenticed with his brother James at the shop where The New-England Courant was printed. Since James would…
Irish Impressions
“For the Irish Question has never been discussed in England. Men have discussed Home Rule; but those who advocated it most warmly, and as I …
Short Nonfiction Collection
A collection of ten short nonfiction works in the public domain. The essays, speeches and reports included in this collection were independ…
Insomnia Collection
Soporific dullness is in the ear of the listener, and what's tedium incarnate to one person will be another person's passion and delight. Ho…
In Defense of Harriet Shelley
Mark Twain pulls no punches while exposing the "real" Percy Shelley in this scathing condemnation of Edward Dowden's "Life of…