Biography &amp; autobiography

True story

Great Astronomers: Isaac Newton

by Robert Stawell Ball

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1726) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian who has been considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist...

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Roughing It

by Mark Twain

Roughing It follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the Wild West during the years 1861–1867. After a brief stint as a Confederate cavalry militiaman, he joined his brother Orion Clemens, who had been...

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Humor

Travel

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

by Mark Twain

Mark Twain's work on Joan of Arc is titled in full Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte who is identified further as Joan's page and secretary. The work is fictionally presented...

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Historical

Great Astronomers: Galileo Galilei

by Robert Stawell Ball

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and...

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The Road

by Jack London

Tales of London's days as a hobo.

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Travel

Biographical Stories

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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The Yellow Wallpaper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a 6,000-word short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American...

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Horror

Short Stories

My Bondage and My Freedom

by Frederick Douglass

My Bondage and My Freedom is an autobiographical slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1855. It is the second of three autobiographies written by Douglass, and is mainly an expansion...

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Personal Memoirs

True story

Shelley: The Poet of Rebellion, Nature, and Love

by Sydney Waterlow

Waterlow gives a brief, unpretentious account of the life and works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who is regarded as one of the finest lyric poets of the English language. Not merely a biography of events, this is...

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Literary essay

Literary

Childhood

by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

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The Golden Age

by Kenneth Grahame

Grahame’s reminiscences are notable for their conception “of a world where children are locked in perpetual warfare with the adult ‘Olympians’ who have wholly forgotten how it feels to be young”--a...

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Fantasy

The Diary of a U-boat Commander

by Sir William Stephen Richard King-Hall

The diary of a World War One U-Boat commander. As well as being a fascinating glimpse of life on the German U-boats during the intense submarine blockade, this also reminds us there were humans involved - on...

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History

History by country

Youth

by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

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Great Astronomers: Nicolaus Copernicus

by Robert Stawell Ball

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was a mathematician and astronomer who formulated a comprehensive heliocentric model which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center of the universe, contrary to the...

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Great Astronomers: Johannes Kepler

by Robert Stawell Ball

German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) derived his mathematical laws of planetary motion from astronomical data meticulously collected by Tycho Brahe, who, as he was dying, beseeched young Kepler to use...

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Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave

by Sojourner Truth

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Personal Memoirs

True story

Great Astronomers: Tycho Brahe

by Robert Stawell Ball

This is the chapter on 16th century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe from Sir Robert S. Ball's Great Astronomers, second edition, which begins: "The most picturesque figure in the history of astronomy ... Tycho...

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Great Astronomers: William Herschel

by Robert Stawell Ball

Sir Frederick William Herschel, (Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel) (1738–1822) was a German-born British astronomer, telescope maker, and composer. He became famous for the first discovery of a planet not visible...

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Great Astronomers: Edmond Halley

by Robert Stawell Ball

Edmond Halley,(1656–1742) was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer...

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