Adam Smith's masterpiece, first published in 1776, is the foundation of modern economic thought and remains the single most important account of the rise of, and the principles behind, modern capitalism. Written...
This is the first and most famous English translation of the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. As a work of English literature FitzGerald's version of these poems, originally written in the Persian language, is...
On Liberty is a philosophical work by 19th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1859. To the Victorian readers of the time it was a radical work, advocating moral and economic freedom...
John Stuart Mill's book Utilitarianism is a philosophical defense of utilitarianism in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser's Magazine in 1861; the articles were...
The Law, original French title La Loi, is a 1849 book by Frédéric Bastiat. It was published one year after the third French Revolution of 1848 and one year before his death of tuberculosis at age 49. The essay...
Mark Twain's "The Jumping Frog : In English, then in French, then clawed back into the civilized language once more by patient unremunerated toil" (1865), also known as "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras...
Written by Mark Twain during the Philippine-American War in the first decade of the twentieth century, The War Prayer tells of a patriotic church service held to send the town's young men off to war. During...
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...
This is the tale of a 19th-century citizen of Hartford, Connecticut who awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England at the time of the legendary King Arthur in AD...
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...
A haunting mystery tale that revolves around the Jack the Ripper murders, this novel was the basis for several films, including a 1927 Alfred Hitchcock silent film featuring Ivor Novello in the title role.
An historical novel that interweaves historical and fictional characters. The action takes place immediately before and during the Mercenary Revolt against Carthage in the third century BC. This book, which...
Madame Bovary scandalized its readers when it was first published in 1857. And the story itself remains as fresh today as when it was first written, a work that remains unsurpassed in its unveiling of character...
Nowhere do Flaubert's explorations of the relation of signs to the objects they signify reach a more thorough study than in this work. Bouvard and Pécuchet systematically confuse signs and symbols with reality,...
From London to Cornwall, then to Italy and France, a short, shabby priest runs to earth bandits, traitors, killers. Why is he so successful? The reason is that after years spent in the priesthood, Father Brown...
Orthodoxy (1908) is a book by G. K. Chesterton that has become a classic of Christian apologetics. Chesterton considered this book a companion to his other work, Heretics. In the book's preface Chesterton states...
Though he was on the whole a fun loving and gregarious man, during adolescence Chesterton was troubled by thoughts of suicide. In Christianity he found answers to many of the dilemmas and paradoxes of life....
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare is a novel by G. K. Chesterton, first published in 1908. The book has been referred to as a metaphysical thriller. Although it deals with anarchists, the novel is not an...