Dover Publications imprint: 4855 books

In the mid-1850s, Boston abolitionist Benjamin Drew visited numerous Canadian towns, interviewing scores of refugees from Southern slave states and taking notes of what they had to say. For reasons of safety, he protected the identity of his informants and used fictitious names. Drew's subsequent...

Many art students and professionals have mastered the art of depicting unclothed figures, but still have trouble accurately rendering clothing or other forms of draped cloth. Part of the problem — before this book came along — was that there was a lack of concise and simple instruction on the...

Intriguing, abundantly illustrated collection of 40 experiments to attract and stimulate young minds. Subjects range from electricity and magnetism to weather, water, distance and time. Among the projects: flight testing homemade rocket balloons and tracking electricity around the house.

A nameless old man sits in the corner of a cozy London tea shop, and without leaving his seat, solves baffling crimes reported to him by an admiring lady journalist. Using only methods of pure deduction, the eccentric, self-assured sleuth unravels the mysteries behind a wide range of criminal acts--from...

The Victorians adored fancy-dress parties: what better way to escape the rigidity of social conventions than to spend a festive evening disguised as Cleopatra, a Swiss milkmaid, or Alice in Wonderland? Well-to-do party-goers of the era consulted Fancy Dresses Described, an elaborate guide to hundreds...

November 4, 1922. For six seasons the legendary Valley of the Kings has yielded no secrets to Howard Carter and his archeological team: "We had almost made up our minds that we were beaten,” he writes, “and were preparing to leave The Valley and try our luck elsewhere; and then--hardly had we...

School days, like our everydays, have changed. But the obsolete world of the one-room schoolhouse filled with rough-hewn desks still lingers. The echoes of yesteryear live on in the old-fashioned classrooms that still stand today. Harkening back to a time when the three Rs actually stood for reading,...

Among the country's greatest artistic contributions, 20th-century Russian literature was revolutionary in its approach to realism, injecting characters with human weaknesses familiar to all. It also provided fodder for other such important concepts as existentialism and even passive resistance, which...

The first great Russian writer to emerge from the ranks of the proletariat, Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) was born into poverty and orphaned at an early age. Entirely self-taught, he experienced firsthand the suffering, injustice, and despair which permeate his tales. Speaking for the social outcast,...

This 1872 sequel to Lewis Carroll's beloved Alice's Adventures in Wonderland finds the inquisitive heroine in a fantastic land where everything is reversed. Looking-glass land, a topsy-turvy world lurking just behind the mirror over Alice's mantel, is a fantastic realm of live chessmen, madcap kings...

The first French translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (there have been no less than seventeen others) was supervised by Lewis Carroll himself. In the opinion of many experts, and countless older and younger French readers, it is still the best. It has a remarkable freshness and originality,...

Carefully chosen collection contains 34 of Carroll's most appealing verses — nonsense verse, parodies, burlesques, more — including such unforgettable pieces as "The Walrus and the Carpenter," "The Mock Turtle's Song," and "Father William," as well as such lesser-known gems as "My Fancy," "A Sea...

Authoritative and perceptive, this sweeping survey covers 150 years of cultural evolution in colonial America, from 1607 to 1763. Developments in religion, literature, education, and social thought receive a thorough analysis, enlivened by a blend of wit and panache that captures all the excitement...

Ornament is the essence of Art Nouveau. Throughout their two decades of dominance, Art Nouveau artists concentrated on the ornamental and decorative potential of the flowing line in painting, printing, wallpaper, and all other fine and applied arts. Hundreds of thousands of carefully wrought designs...