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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The Road

by Jack London

Tales of London's days as a hobo.

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Travel

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

St. Francis of Assisi

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Chesterton was an orthodox religious person, eventually converting to Roman Catholicism. In 1923, he wrote this short biography of St. Francis of Assisi, after whom Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose his papal...

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Religious

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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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

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

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

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

Twelve Men

by Theodore Dreiser

Character sketches, combining the best of biography with the finest of narrative - short and illustrative.

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The Confessions

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher...

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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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Childhood

by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

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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

Boyhood

by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

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Biographical Stories

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Sailing Alone Around the World

by Joshua Slocum

Sailing Alone Around the World (1900) is a sailing memoir by Joshua Slocum about his single-handed global circumnavigation aboard the sloop Spray. Slocum was the first person to sail around the world alone....

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Adventurers & Ex...

Personal Memoirs

The Makers of Canada: George Brown

by John Lewis

George Brown (November 29, 1818 – March 9, 1880) was a Scottish-born Canadian journalist, politician Fathers of Confederation. A noted Reform politician, he was also the founder and editor of the Toronto Globe,...

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