Books published by publisher Didactic Press

THE present work has no pretention to be anything like an exhaustive biography of Charles XII.--a perfectly adequate treatment of so large and complex a subject would demand many volumes. But it does claim to at least suggest the lines on which such a biography should be written, it professes to present the leading facts of the heroic monarch's career in the light of the latest investigations and it endeavours to dissipate the many erroneous notions concerning "The Lion of the North" for which Voltaire's brilliant and attractive work, I have almost said romance, Histoire de Charles XII. is mainly responsible…

Not content with bringing the Gallo-Romans under his sway, Clovis waged war also with the barbarian peoples in the neighborhood of his kingdom. In the year 491 he forced the Thuringians on the left bank of the Rhine to submit to him, and enrolled their warriors among his own troops. He also invited other barbarian auxiliaries to march under his standards as well as the Roman soldiers who had been placed to guard the frontier, and in this way he formed a very strong army. The fame of Clovis began to spread abroad. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who had almost completed the conquest of Italy, asked the hand of his sister Albofleda in marriage, and Clovis himself, in 493, espoused a Burgundian princess, Clotilda, daughter of Chilperic, who had died not long before, and niece of the kings Gundobad and Godigisel. Clotilda was an orthodox Christian and set herself to convert her husband—it would be possible to trace the influence of women in many of those great conversions which have had important political consequences. Half won-over, the king of the Franks allowed his children to be baptized, but he hesitated to abjure for himself the faith of his ancestors. He did not make up his mind until after his first victory over the Alemans.

A beautiful retelling of Norse mythology, excellent as both an introduction to the sagas of the Vikings and for those that are already familiar with them. Illustrated to enhance the reading experience, formatted for Kindle devices and the Kindle for iOS apps.Contents include:THE BEGINNING OF THINGSHOW ODIN LOST HIS EYEKVASIR'S BLOODTHE GIANT BUILDERTHE MAGIC APPLESSKADI'S CHOICETHE DWARF'S GIFTSLOKI'S CHILDRENTHE QUEST OF THE HAMMERTHE GIANTESS WHO WOULD NOTTHOR'S VISIT TO THE GIANTSTHOR'S FISHINGTHOR'S DUELIN THE GIANT'S HOUSEBALDER AND THE MISTLETOETHE PUNISHMENT OF LOKI

As a matter of course, some of these stories are better known, and therefore more famous, than others. Some have a slight historical value; some are useful as giving point to certain great moral truths; others are products solely of the fancy, and are intended only to amuse. Some are derived from very ancient sources, and are current in the literature of many lands; some have come to us through the ballads and folk tales of the English people; a few are of quite recent origin; nearly all are the subjects of frequent allusions in poetry and prose and in the conversation of educated people. Care has been taken to exclude everything that is not strictly within the limits of probability; hence there is here no trespassing upon the domain of the fairy tale, the fable, or the myth.

The reader is carried back, in the present volume, to a period two centuries previous to the discovery of the route to India by Vasco da Gama, and to the conquest of Peru by Pizarro. A young Venetian of the thirteenth century, brought up amid luxury and wealth, of a bold spirit and a curious mind, went forth from his home in the beautiful Queen City of the Adriatic, and for many years lived among a far-off Asiatic people, and at a court of barbaric and yet splendid pomp.He made many far and dangerous journeyings in the wild distant lands and among the fierce tribes of Cathay, Thibet, India, and Abyssinia. His life was passed amid an almost incessant succession of exciting events, of strange adventures, and of hair-breadth escapes. He rose to high distinction and power at the Tartar court of the mighty Kublai Khan, one of the most famous conquerors and potentates who ever, in either ancient or modern times, have led legions to devastating wars, or have ruled teeming millions with despotic sway.Nor did his career of valor and stirring action end with his return, middle-aged and laden with riches, to his native Venice. He engaged in the bitter warfare between the two rival republics of the sea, Venice and Genoa; became a prisoner of the latter state: and while in prison, dictated the wondrous narrative of his adventures which still survives, a precious legacy left by this great traveller to later generations.I have attempted to transform the somewhat dry and monotonous translation of this narrative into an entertaining story, that may engage the attention and the interest of my young readers; for which it certainly presents ample opportunities. If the task is properly done, no one can fail to follow Marco Polo from his Venetian home, across the entire continent of Asia to the court of Kublai Khan, and in his various adventures and journeys while in the far-off Orient, without eager curiosity and ever-deepening interest. The central figure of the story is heroic, for Marco Polo was in all things manly, brave, persevering, intelligent, and chivalrous; and the scenes and incidents in which he was the leading actor were in the highest degree thrilling and dramatic.

"The Empire upon which the sun never sets." We all know these words, and we say them with a somewhat proud and grand air, for that vast Empire is ours. It belongs to us, and we to it.But although we are proud of our Empire it may be that some of us know little of its history. We only know it as it now is, and we forget perhaps that there was a time when it did not exist. We forget that it has grown to be great out of very small beginnings. We forget that it did not grow great all at once, but that with pluck and patience our fellow-countrymen built it up by little and by little, each leaving behind him a vaster inheritance than he found. So, "lest we forget," in this book I have told a few of the most exciting and interesting stories about the building up of this our great heritage and possession.But we cannot"Rise with the sun and ride with the same,Until the next morning he rises again."We cannot in one day grid the whole world about, following the sun in his course, visiting with him all the many countries, all the scattered islands of the sea which form the mighty Empire upon which he never ceases to shine. No, it will take us many days to compass the journey, and little eyes would ache, little brains be weary long before the tale ended did I try to tell of all "the far-away isles of home, where the old speech is native, and teh old flag floats." So in this book you will find stories of the five chief portions of our Empire only, that of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India. But perhaps some day, if you greet these stories as kindly as you have greeted those of England and of Scotland, I will tell you in another book more stories of Our Empire.The stories are not all bright. How should they be? We have made mistakes, we have been checked here, we have stumbled there. We may own it without shame, perhaps almost without sorrow, and still love our Empire and its builders. Still we may say,"Where shall the watchful sun,England, my England,Match the master-work you've done,England, my own?When shall we rejoice agenSuch a breed of mighty menAs come forward, one to ten,To the song on your bugles blown,England—Down the years on your bugles blown?"H.E. MARSHALL

THE history of Spain offers us a melancholy contrast. Twelve hundred years ago, Tarik the Moor added the land of the Visigoths to the long catalogue of kingdoms subdued by the Moslems. For nearly eight centuries, under her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State. Her fertile provinces, rendered doubly prolific by the industry and engineering skill of her conquerors, bore fruit an hundredfold. Cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys of the Guadalquivir and the Guadiana, whose names, and names only, still commemorate the vanished glories of their past. Art, literature, and science prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe. Students flocked from France and Germany and England to drink from the fountain of learning which flowed only in the cities of the Moors. The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia were in the van of science: women were encouraged to devote themselves to serious study, and the lady doctor was not unknown among the people of Cordova. Mathematics, astronomy and botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in Spain, and Spain alone. The practical work of the field, the scientific methods of irrigation, the arts of fortification and shipbuilding, the highest and most elaborate products of the loom, the graver and the hammer, the potter's wheel and the mason's trowel, were brought to perfection by the Spanish Moors. In the practice of war no less than in the arts of peace they long stood supreme. Their fleets disputed the command of the Mediterranean with the Fatimites, while their armies carried fire and sword through the Christian marches. The Cid himself, the national hero, long fought on the Moorish side, and in all save education was more than half a Moor. Whatsoever makes a kingdom great and prosperous, whatsoever tends to refinement and civilization, was found in Moslem Spain.In 1492 the last bulwark of the Moors gave way before the crusade of Ferdinand and Isabella, and with Granada fell all Spain's greatness. For a brief while, indeed, the reflection of the Moorish splendour cast a borrowed light upon the history of the land which it had once warmed with its sunny radiance. The great epoch of Isabella, Charles V., and Philip II., of Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro, shed a last halo about the dying moments of a mighty State. Then followed the abomination of desolation, the rule of the Inquisition, and the blackness of darkness in which Spain has been plunged ever since. In the land where science was once supreme, the Spanish doctors became noted for nothing but their ignorance and incapacity, and the discoveries of Newton and Harvey were condemned as pernicious to the faith. Where once seventy public libraries had fed the minds of scholars, and half a million books had been gathered together at Cordova for the benefit of the world, such indifference to learning afterwards prevailed, that the new capital, Madrid, possessed no public library in the eighteenth century, and even the manuscripts of the Escurial were denied in our own days to the first scholarly historian of the Moors, though himself a Spaniard. The sixteen thousand looms of Seville soon dwindled to a fifth of their ancient number; the arts and industries of Toledo and Almeria faded into insignificance; the very baths—public buildings of equal ornament and use—were destroyed because cleanliness savoured too strongly of rank infidelity. The land, deprived of the skilful irrigation of the Moors, grew impoverished and neglected; the richest and most fertile valleys languished and were deserted; most of the populous cities which had filled every district of Andalusia fell into ruinous decay; and beggars, friars, and bandits took the place of scholars, merchants, and knights. So low fell Spain when she had driven away the Moors. Such is the melancholy contrast offered by her history.Stanley Poole.

The Story of Joan of Arc, a story of a peasant girl, the lowest of the low with no knowledge of politics or military doctrine who came to lead the armies of France against the English at Orleans. She managed to overcome her station in life and embody a destiny greater than she knew, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War. Her story is the story of a miracle, at once inspiring at the sheer heights she ascended, and a tragedy, as her ultimate betrayal and death can attest.

The conduct of Pepin was not unworthy of the confidence which had been reposed in him. Like his immediate predecessor, he triumphed over the hostile Frisians and Saxons, and he quelled the insurrections of the Germanic dukes. To the pope he proved that he could be grateful for his elevation to a throne. Being honoured by a personal visit from Stephen III., and informed of the extremity to which the Roman possessions were reduced, he first remonstrated with Astolfus of Lombardy; and when that prince still marched on Rome, he hastened into Italy, and forced him to restore the exarchate of Ravenna, not indeed to the Greek emperor, but to the pope. In his testament, which he took care to see confirmed in a public diet, the year before his death, he left his two sons, Charles and Carloman, joint heirs of his states. To the one he left the West, from Frisia to the Pyrenees; to the other, the Germanic provinces, part of Austrasia, Alsace, Switzerland, Burgundy, and Provence. To us, whom history has presented with a wide field of experience, it often seems surprising that such impolitic measures could be adopted by men distinguished for considerable powers of judgment,—for such, assuredly, were Charles Martel and Pepin. Its ruinous effects were before the eyes of both; yet neither they nor any other sovereign of these ages ever thought of deviating from it. It is indeed probable, that to one of the sons,—generally the eldest,—a superiority was awarded over the others; but it was merely feudal,—consequently nominal. The most obvious cause of this policy must be traced to that natural affection, and to those natural feelings of justice, which lay in the paternal breast; yet a more enlightened affection would have shrunk from placing sons in a position where they must inevitably become hostile to one another,—where troubles must, of necessity, agitate both them and their people. But the equality of rights among the children of the same family, the total absence of primogenital advantages, distinguished all the Teutonic, all the Sclavonic nations; and custom was too powerful to be eradicated by policy, until it was found, by that most effectual, though most melancholy of teachers, experience, that where primogeniture is not adopted, society will be disorganised. In the present instance, indeed, no serious mischief followed the partition. A civil war was preparing by both brothers, when Carloman died, and though he left children, their claims were disregarded by Charles, who seized the whole inheritance...

A little more than a hundred years ago, a poor man, by the name of Crockett, embarked on board an emigrant-ship, in Ireland, for the New World. He was in the humblest station in life. But very little is known respecting his uneventful career excepting its tragical close. His family consisted of a wife and three or four children. Just before he sailed, or on the Atlantic passage, a son was born, to whom he gave the name of John. The family probably landed in Philadelphia, and dwelt somewhere in Pennsylvania, for a year or two, in one of those slab shanties, with which all are familiar as the abodes of the poorest class of Irish emigrants.After a year or two, Crockett, with his little family, crossed the almost pathless Alleghanies. Father, mother, and children trudged along through the rugged defiles and over the rocky cliffs, on foot. Probably a single pack-horse conveyed their few household goods. The hatchet and the rifle were the only means of obtaining food, shelter, and even clothing. With the hatchet, in an hour or two, a comfortable camp could be constructed, which would protect them from wind and rain. The camp-fire, cheering the darkness of the night, drying their often wet garments, and warming their chilled limbs with its genial glow, enabled them to enjoy that almost greatest of earthly luxuries, peaceful sleep.The rifle supplied them with food. The fattest of turkeys and the most tender steaks of venison, roasted upon forked sticks, which they held in their hands over the coals, feasted their voracious appetites. This, to them, was almost sumptuous food. The skin of the deer, by a rapid and simple process of tanning, supplied them with moccasons, and afforded material for the repair of their tattered garments.

"It is difficult to tell the story of Carthage, because one has to tell it without sympathy, and from the standpoint of her enemies. It is a great advantage, on the other hand, that the materials are of a manageable amount, and that a fairly complete narrative may be given within a moderate compass." - Alfred ChurchThis is the Story of Carthage, from the legend of Dido to the Carthaginian Empire's dominance of the Mediterranean Sea and military pre-eminence to its' ultimate decline and fall at the hands of an even greater power: Rome.