Barnes Noble: 2826 books

Published in 1876, this history was praised in the pages of the Boston Journal as leaving "nothing to be desired as regards compactness, accuracy, and excellence of literary execution." Creighton walks the reader through English history—from the Reformation to Elizabeth’s death, after a forty-six year reign.

The first comprehensive history of the world, The Outline of History is a vibrant synthesis of real history, told in a sweeping, panoramic style, as if it were fiction. H. G. Wells removes nationalism from the equation, creating the premier worldview of history, told from a global rather than a local...

Hints for Home Reading brings together a series of articles about the art of reading by such well-known writers of the day as clergyman Henry Ward Beecher and Twain collaborator Charles Dudley Warner. Essays including “Why Young People Read Trash, “ and “How to Make Dull Boys Read,” are filled...

In this 1917 work of nonfiction, a sequel to First and Last Things, Wells declared his “profound belief in a personal and intimate God.” However, he was highly critical of organized Christianity since the Council of Nicaea. An agnostic on the issue of creation, he argues for the role of God as Redeemer.

In 1900, Santayana’s assault on conventional pieties outraged contemporaries like William James. This first work of prose criticism asserts that “poetry is called religion when it intervenes in life, and religion, when it merely supervenes upon life, is seen to be nothing but poetry.” Santayana’s ideas continue to influence debates over science and religion.

In this masterful biography, Goldwin Smith presents the life and works of William Cowper (1731-1800), whom Samuel Taylor Coleridge called “the best modern poet.” Tracing Cowper’s life—from his beginnings in England to his death—Smith analyzes his major lyrical works and as well as his hymns. Smith also offers an examination of the writer’s lasting influence on Romantic poetry.

The Domesday Book was a survey of England completed in 1086 for William the Conqueror. Maitland’s 1897 overview of feudal life, The Doomsday Book and Beyond, was called the greatest single book on English medieval history by Professor J. C. Holt. It influenced a century of scholarship. In addition to the title essay, this book includes “England Before the Conquest” and “The Hide.”

This 1903 history traces the reigns of Henry II, Richard I, and John—the first three great Plantagenet Kings. Their empire covered England, half of medieval France, and Ireland. Ramsay says his work is for “those who ask for facts rather than impressions,” and therefore pays particular attention to the military actions, as well as the political positions of the kings.

This influential 1897 work on comparative mythology takes on a scholarly controversy that raged at the time over the origin of mythology. Is myth “a disease of language,” as Max Müller claimed, or does it, as the Lang argues here, reflect the spiritual needs of humans? Lang makes the case for an anthropological study of mythology.

Limiting itself to only the most essential and famous authors writing in English, this 1904 introduction to literature devotes itself mainly to Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Bacon, Milton, Pope, Defoe, Swift, Burns, Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, plus Samuel Johnson’s circle and the novelists...

This 1866 collection of essays on “Work,” “Traffic,” and “War,” begins with a preface condemning the human depletion of nature for what Ruskin saw as valueless gains. In this way, mining the ground for metals, water, and other resources parallels the work of the three lecture topics—all...

Thomas Hughes’s biography of David Livingstone (1813-1873) follows the legendary Scottish explorer’s life from his impoverished childhood to his missionary work in Africa, where he would remain for thirty years and where he discovered Victoria Falls. This is an enthralling account of Livingstone’s extraordinary accomplishments.

Margaret Davidson was the younger sister of Lucretia Davidson, who died when Margaret was a toddler. Margaret followed in the footsteps of her talented older sister, first becoming a poet, then dying of consumption in her teens. In this poignant volume, Irving memorializes the young Margaret and presents a collection of her poems.

Washington Irving had a lifelong interest in Spain and its history under the Moors. He crafted this portrait of Mahomet and Muslims—combining both facts and legends—in order to show not only the prophet, but also the faith. Irving wrote this work (deciding not to cite sources, as he deemed them unnecessary here) while he was living in Madrid.