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Books with title The People of the Abyss: Complete With 80 Original Illustrations

  • Myths of the Cherokee: Complete With 35 Original Illustrations

    James Mooney

    eBook (, June 30, 2020)
    The myths given in this paper are part of a large body of material collected among the Cherokee, chiefly in successive field seasons from 1887 to 1890, inclusive, and comprising more or less extensive notes, together with original Cherokee manuscripts, relating to the history, archeology, geographic nomenclature, personal names, botany, medicine, arts, home life, religion, songs, ceremonies, and language of the tribe. It is intended that this material shall appear from time to time in a series of papers which, when finally brought together, shall constitute a monograph upon the Cherokee Indians. This paper may be considered the first of the series, all that has hitherto appeared being a short paper upon the sacred formulas of the tribe, published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau in 1891 and containing a synopsis of the Cherokee medico-religious theory, with twenty-eight specimens selected from a body of about six hundred ritual formulas written down in the Cherokee language and alphabet by former doctors of the tribe and constituting altogether the largest body of aboriginal American literature in existence.Although the Cherokee are probably the largest and most important tribe in the United States, having their own national government and numbering at any time in their history from 20,000 to 25,000 persons, almost nothing has yet been written of their history or general ethnology, as compared with the literature of such northern tribes as the Delawares, the Iroquois, or the Ojibwa. The difference is due to historical reasons which need not be discussed here.It might seem at first thought that the Cherokee, with their civilized code of laws, their national press, their schools and seminaries, are so far advanced along the white man’s road as to offer but little inducement for ethnologic study. This is largely true of those in the Indian Territory, with whom the enforced deportation, two generations ago, from accustomed scenes and surroundings did more at a single stroke to obliterate Indian ideas than could have been accomplished by fifty years of slow development. There remained behind, however, in the heart of the Carolina mountains, a considerable body, outnumbering today such well-known western tribes as the Omaha, Pawnee, Comanche, and Kiowa, and it is among these, the old conservative Kitu′hwa element, that the ancient things have been preserved. Mountaineers guard well the past, and in the secluded forests of Nantahala and Oconaluftee, far away from the main-traveled road of modern progress, the Cherokee priest still treasures the legends and repeats the mystic rituals handed down from his ancestors. There is change indeed in dress and outward seeming, but the heart of the Indian is still his own.
  • Audrey: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Mary Johnston

    eBook (, July 28, 2020)
    Mary Johnston was born in 1870 in Buchanan, Virginia, the eldest child of Major John W. Johnston, a Confederate veteran whose family was connected with that of General Joseph E. Johnston and Elizabeth Alexander. A delicate child, educated by governesses and tutors, she lived at home until she was nineteen; browsing in her father’s library, she became an avid reader, particularly of history. She traveled in Europe and the Middle East with her widowed father and in 1893 moved to New York. During her four-year residence there she was bedridden, and in default of an active life she began to write. Her first novel, Prisoners of Hope, written to help the family financially, was little noticed; her second, To Have and to Hold, a romantic story of the Virginia Colony, sold more than half a million copies. Her third novel, Audrey, repeated this success. Although her subsequent work was less enthusiastically received, she was henceforth provided with an independent career. She never married. Upon her father’s death, she moved to Richmond and afterward to Three Hills, the house she built at Warm Springs, Virginia. There, after an operation, she died on May 9, 1936.In the United States the historical novel, largely because of its influence on major realistic writers, has earned a place of fairly high repute. In its own right, the genre has also received the approval of a large reading public and many authors have achieved commercial success. If the achievements of Mary Johnston do not now seem remarkable, the reason is that new generations have surpassed them; in the early twentieth century, they were extraordinary.Johnston will be remembered as a creator of historical verisimilitude and as a skillful narrator. Although she did not confine herself to American locales and events, she was at her best when depicting them. The Long Roll and its sequel, Cease Firing, are romances of the Civil War period. Her zeal in the cause of women’s rights prompted her two feminist novels, Hagar and The Wanderers. The heroine in Hagar is a financially successful southern writer; Hagar is widely considered her most interesting novel. Johnston’s socialist pacifism produced Foes, which was the first of a series of novels having mystical bearings, indebted in some measure to her interest in Buddhism; of these, the most noteworthy are Michael Forth and Sweet Rocket.
  • The Battle of Life: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Charles Dickens

    Paperback (Independently published, June 28, 2020)
    The Battle of Life: A Love Story is an 1846 novel by Charles Dickens. It is the fourth of his five "Christmas Books", coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain.The setting is an English village that stands on the site of an historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title.Battle is the only one of the five Christmas Books that has no supernatural or explicitly religious elements. (One scene takes place at Christmas time, but it is not the final scene.) The story bears some resemblance to The Cricket on the Hearth in two respects: it has a non-urban setting, and it is resolved with a romantic twist. It is even less of a social novel than is Cricket. As is typical with Dickens, the ending is a happy one.It is one of Dickens's lesser-known works and has never attained any high level of popularity – a trait it shares among the Christmas Books with The Haunted Man.Two sisters, Grace and Marion, live happily in an English village with their two servants, Clemency Newcome and Ben Britain, and their good-natured widower father Dr Jeddler. Dr Jeddler is a man whose philosophy is to treat life as a farce. Marion, the younger sister, is betrothed to Alfred Heathfield, Jeddler's ward who is leaving the village to complete his studies. He entrusts Marion to Grace's care and makes a promise to return to win Marion's hand.Michael Warden, a libertine who is about to leave the country, is thought by the barristers Snitchey and Craggs to be about to seduce the younger sister into an elopement. Clemency spies Marion one night in her clandestine rendezvous with Warden. On the day that Alfred is to return, however, it is discovered that Marion has run off. Her supposed elopement causes much grief to both her father and her sister.Six years pass. Clemency is now married to Britain and the two have set up a tavern in the village. After nursing heartbreak, Alfred marries Grace instead of Marion and she bears him a daughter, also called Marion. On the birthday of Marion, Grace confides to Alfred that Marion has made a promise to explain her so-called "elopement" in person. Marion indeed appears that evening by sunset and explains her disappearance to the parties involved. It turns out that Marion has not "eloped" but has instead been living at her aunt Martha's place so as to allow Alfred to fall in love with Grace. Tears are shed and happiness and forgiveness reign as the missing sister is reunited with the rest. Warden also returns, and, forgiven by Dr Jeddler, marries Marion.
  • The Borgias: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Alexandre Dumas

    Paperback (Independently published, June 8, 2020)
    There are dreadful -- perhaps scurrilous -- rumors about the Borgias of renaissance Italy, and here Dumas, author of such classics as THE THREE MUSKETEERS, in his Celebrated Crimes series, dishes up the dirt in all its ugly glory. This book was not written for children. Dumas has minced no words in describing the violent scenes of a violent time. From 1839 to 1841, Dumas, with the assistance of several friends, compiled Celebrated Crimes, an eight-volume collection of essays on famous criminals and crimes from European history. He featured Beatrice Cenci, Martin Guerre, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, as well as more recent events and criminals, including the cases of the alleged murderers Karl Ludwig Sand and Antoine FranCois Desrues, who were executed.
  • The Adventures of Ulysses: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Charles Lamb

    Paperback (Independently published, July 13, 2020)
    This work is designed as a supplement to the Adventures of Telemachus. It treats of the conduct and sufferings of Ulysses, the father of Telemachus. The picture which it exhibits is that of a brave man struggling with adversity; by a wise use of events, and with an inimitable presence of mind under difficulties, forcing out a way for himself through the severest trials to which human life can be exposed; with enemies natural and preternatural surrounding him on all sides. The agents in this tale, besides men and women, are giants, enchanters, sirens: things which denote external force or internal temptations, the twofold danger which a wise fortitude must expect to encounter in its course through this world. The fictions contained in it will be found to comprehend some of the most admired inventions of Grecian mythology.The groundwork of the story is as old as the Odyssey, but the moral and the coloring are comparatively modern. By avoiding the prolixity which marks the speeches and the descriptions in Homer, I have gained a rapidity to the narration which I hope will make it more attractive and give it more the air of a romance to young readers, though I am sensible that by the curtailment I have sacrificed in many places the manners to the passion, the subordinate characteristics to the essential interest of the story. The attempt is not to be considered as seeking a comparison with any of the direct translations of the Odyssey, either in prose or verse, though if I were to state the obligations which I have had to one obsolete version, [Footnote: The translation of Homer by Chapman in the reign of James I.] I should run the hazard of depriving myself of the very slender degree of reputation which I could hope to acquire from a trifle like the present undertaking.
  • The Prince and the Pauper: Complete With 200 Original Illustrations

    Mark Twain

    Paperback (Independently published, June 29, 2020)
    The Prince and the Pauper is an English-language novel by American author Mark Twain. It was first published in 1881 in Canada before its 1882 publication in the United States. The book represents Twain's first attempt at historical fiction. Set in 1547, the novel tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London; and Edward VI of England, son of Henry VIII of England.The novel begins with Tom Canty, an impoverished boy living with his abusive family in London. One day Tom Canty and Edward VI of England Prince Edward, the son of King Henry VIII and Jane Seymour meet and as a jest, switch clothes. While dressed in the pauper's rags, the Prince leaves the palace to punish the guard who knocked Tom down. However, the boys look remarkably alike and because they switch clothes, the palace guards throw the prince out into the street. The Prince fares poorly in London because he insists on proclaiming his identity as the true Prince of Wales. Meanwhile despite Tom's repeated denial of his birthright, the court and the King insist that he is the true prince gone mad. Edward eventually runs into Tom's family and a gang of thieves and Twain illustrates England's unfair and barbaric justice system. After the death of Henry VIII, Edward interrupts Tom's coronation and the boys explain, switch places, and Edward is crowned King of England.
  • A Tale of Two Cities: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Charles Dickens

    Paperback (Independently published, June 26, 2020)
    'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…'Set before and during the French Revolution in the cities of Paris and London, A Tale of Two Cities tells the story of Dr Manette's release from imprisonment in the Bastille and his reunion with daughter, Lucie. A French aristocrat Darnay and English lawyer Carton compete in their love for Lucie and the ensuing tale plays out against the menacing backdrop of the French Revolution and the shadow of the guillotine.
  • The Queen of Hearts: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Wilkie Collins

    eBook (, July 11, 2020)
    AT a time when French readers were altogether unaware of the existence of any books of my writing, a critical examination of my novels appeared under your signature in the Revue des Deux Mondes. I read that article, at the time of its appearance, with sincere pleasure and sincere gratitude to the writer, and I have honestly done my best to profit by it ever since.At a later period, when arrangements were made for the publication of my novels in Paris, you kindly undertook, at some sacrifice of your own convenience, to give the first of the series—“The Dead Secret”—the great advantage of being rendered into French by your pen. Your excellent translation of “The Lighthouse” had already taught me how to appreciate the value of your assistance; and when “The Dead Secret” appeared in its French form, although I was sensibly gratified, I was by no means surprised to find my fortunate work of fiction, not translated, in the mechanical sense of the word, but transformed from a novel that I had written in my language to a novel that you might have written in yours.I am now about to ask you to confer one more literary obligation on me by accepting the dedication of this book, as the earliest acknowledgment which it has been in my power to make of the debt I owe to my critic, to my translator, and to my friend.The stories which form the principal contents of the following pages are all, more or less, exercises in that art which I have now studied anxiously for some years, and which I still hope to cultivate, to better and better purpose, for many more. Allow me, by inscribing the collection to you, to secure one reader for it at the outset of its progress through the world of letters whose capacity for seeing all a writer’s defects may be matched by many other critics, but whose rarer faculty of seeing all a writer’s merits is equaled by very few.
  • The Queen of Hearts: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Wilkie Collins

    Paperback (Independently published, July 12, 2020)
    AT a time when French readers were altogether unaware of the existence of any books of my writing, a critical examination of my novels appeared under your signature in the Revue des Deux Mondes. I read that article, at the time of its appearance, with sincere pleasure and sincere gratitude to the writer, and I have honestly done my best to profit by it ever since.At a later period, when arrangements were made for the publication of my novels in Paris, you kindly undertook, at some sacrifice of your own convenience, to give the first of the series—“The Dead Secret”—the great advantage of being rendered into French by your pen. Your excellent translation of “The Lighthouse” had already taught me how to appreciate the value of your assistance; and when “The Dead Secret” appeared in its French form, although I was sensibly gratified, I was by no means surprised to find my fortunate work of fiction, not translated, in the mechanical sense of the word, but transformed from a novel that I had written in my language to a novel that you might have written in yours.I am now about to ask you to confer one more literary obligation on me by accepting the dedication of this book, as the earliest acknowledgment which it has been in my power to make of the debt I owe to my critic, to my translator, and to my friend.The stories which form the principal contents of the following pages are all, more or less, exercises in that art which I have now studied anxiously for some years, and which I still hope to cultivate, to better and better purpose, for many more. Allow me, by inscribing the collection to you, to secure one reader for it at the outset of its progress through the world of letters whose capacity for seeing all a writer’s defects may be matched by many other critics, but whose rarer faculty of seeing all a writer’s merits is equaled by very few.
  • MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE: Complete With Original Illustrations

    JAMES MOONEY

    eBook (, July 14, 2020)
    The myths given in this paper are part of a large body of material collected among the Cherokee, chiefly in successive field seasons from 1887 to 1890, inclusive, and comprising more or less extensive notes, together with original Cherokee manuscripts, relating to the history, archeology, geographic nomenclature, personal names, botany, medicine, arts, home life, religion, songs, ceremonies, and language of the tribe. It is intended that this material shall appear from time to time in a series of papers which, when finally brought together, shall constitute a monograph upon the Cherokee Indians. This paper may be considered the first of the series, all that has hitherto appeared being a short paper upon the sacred formulas of the tribe, published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau in 1891 and containing a synopsis of the Cherokee medico-religious theory, with twenty-eight specimens selected from a body of about six hundred ritual formulas written down in the Cherokee language and alphabet by former doctors of the tribe and constituting altogether the largest body of aboriginal American literature in existence.Although the Cherokee are probably the largest and most important tribe in the United States, having their own national government and numbering at any time in their history from 20,000 to 25,000 persons, almost nothing has yet been written of their history or general ethnology, as compared with the literature of such northern tribes as the Delawares, the Iroquois, or the Ojibwa. The difference is due to historical reasons which need not be discussed here.It might seem at first thought that the Cherokee, with their civilized code of laws, their national press, their schools and seminaries, are so far advanced along the white man’s road as to offer but little inducement for ethnologic study. This is largely true of those in the Indian Territory, with whom the enforced deportation, two generations ago, from accustomed scenes and surroundings did more at a single stroke to obliterate Indian ideas than could have been accomplished by fifty years of slow development. There remained behind, however, in the heart of the Carolina mountains, a considerable body, outnumbering today such well-known western tribes as the Omaha, Pawnee, Comanche, and Kiowa, and it is among these, the old conservative Kitu′hwa element, that the ancient things have been preserved. Mountaineers guard well the past, and in the secluded forests of Nantahala and Oconaluftee, far away from the main-traveled road of modern progress, the Cherokee priest still treasures the legends and repeats the mystic rituals handed down from his ancestors. There is change indeed in dress and outward seeming, but the heart of the Indian is still his own.
  • Audrey: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Mary Johnston

    Paperback (Independently published, July 29, 2020)
    Mary Johnston was born in 1870 in Buchanan, Virginia, the eldest child of Major John W. Johnston, a Confederate veteran whose family was connected with that of General Joseph E. Johnston and Elizabeth Alexander. A delicate child, educated by governesses and tutors, she lived at home until she was nineteen; browsing in her father’s library, she became an avid reader, particularly of history. She traveled in Europe and the Middle East with her widowed father and in 1893 moved to New York. During her four-year residence there she was bedridden, and in default of an active life she began to write. Her first novel, Prisoners of Hope, written to help the family financially, was little noticed; her second, To Have and to Hold, a romantic story of the Virginia Colony, sold more than half a million copies. Her third novel, Audrey, repeated this success. Although her subsequent work was less enthusiastically received, she was henceforth provided with an independent career. She never married. Upon her father’s death, she moved to Richmond and afterward to Three Hills, the house she built at Warm Springs, Virginia. There, after an operation, she died on May 9, 1936.In the United States the historical novel, largely because of its influence on major realistic writers, has earned a place of fairly high repute. In its own right, the genre has also received the approval of a large reading public and many authors have achieved commercial success. If the achievements of Mary Johnston do not now seem remarkable, the reason is that new generations have surpassed them; in the early twentieth century, they were extraordinary.Johnston will be remembered as a creator of historical verisimilitude and as a skillful narrator. Although she did not confine herself to American locales and events, she was at her best when depicting them. The Long Roll and its sequel, Cease Firing, are romances of the Civil War period. Her zeal in the cause of women’s rights prompted her two feminist novels, Hagar and The Wanderers. The heroine in Hagar is a financially successful southern writer; Hagar is widely considered her most interesting novel. Johnston’s socialist pacifism produced Foes, which was the first of a series of novels having mystical bearings, indebted in some measure to her interest in Buddhism; of these, the most noteworthy are Michael Forth and Sweet Rocket.
  • Simon Dale: Complete With Original Illustrations

    Anthony Hope

    Paperback (Independently published, July 15, 2020)
    Anthony Hope Dolly Dialoguesrupert of hentzau by anthony hopeAnthony Hope was born Feb. 9, 1863, in London. His father was the headmaster of the St. Johns Foundation School for the Sons of Poor Clergy. He was educated at Marlborough School and Baliol College, Oxford, obtaining an M.A. with honors in 1885. He studied to become a lawyer, and was admitted to the bar in 1887. He set up his own practice, but clients were few and far between, and he spent the periods in between cases by writing novels. When he couldn't find a publisher for his first novel, he published it himself. The novel became a hit, coincidentally at the same time his law practice began to take off. When it got to the point where he had to choose between his law practice and writing, he chose writing.