Left unfinished at the time of his death, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin has endured as one of the most well-known and influential autobiographies ever written. From his early years in Boston and Philadelphia to the publication of his Poor Richard's Almanac to the American Revolution and beyond, Franklin's autobiography is a fascinating, personal exploration into the life of America's most interesting founding father.

Very few people know that Mark Twain wrote a major work on Joan of Arc. Still fewer know that he considered it not only his most important, but also his best work. He spent 12 years in research and many months in France doing archival work, and then made several attempts until he felt he finally had the story he wanted to tell.

A Nobel Peace Prize recipient beatified by the Catholic Church in 2003, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was celebrated by heads of state and adored by millions for her work on behalf of the poor. In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions - not the other way around. With characteristic élan and rhetorical dexterity, Hitchens eviscerates the fawning cult of Teresa, recasting the Albanian missionary as a spurious, despotic, and megalomaniacal operative.

In Father Michael McGivney (1852-1890), born and raised in a Connecticut factory town, the modern era's ideal of the priesthood hit its zenith. The son of Irish immigrants, he was a man to whom "family values" represented more than mere rhetoric. And he left a legacy of hope still celebrated around the world.

In 1893, Liliuokalani, the Queen of Hawaii, was deposed and five years later her nation became an incorporated territory of the United States. Published shortly after these momentous events, her book Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen is an incredibly personal history of the islands that she was born to rule. Liliuokalani covers from her birth in 1838 through the reigns of her forebears to her own turbulent time as Queen of the Hawaiian Islands.

The Law of Success (originally The Law of Success in 16 Lessons) is the title of Napoleon Hill's first book set, published initially in 1928 as a multi-volume correspondence course and later more compact formats in recent years. The work was originally commissioned at the request of Andrew Carnegie at the conclusion of a multi-day interview with Hill, and was based upon interviews of over 100 American millionaires across nearly 20 years.

Ramachandra Guha takes us from Gandhi's birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his two years as a student in London, and his two decades as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. Guha has uncovered myriad previously untapped documents, including private papers of Gandhi's contemporaries. Using this wealth of material in an exuberant, brilliantly nuanced and detailed narrative, Guha describes the social, political, and personal worlds inside of which Gandhi began the journey that would earn him the honorific Mahatma: "Great Soul".

Trollope's classic novel features Reverend Septimus Harding, the elderly warden of the Barchester alms-house. However, for a man devoting himself to helping the poor, Reverend Harding's salary is rather lucrative. Aiming to ease his conscience and quiet his neighbors' whispers, he decides to divest himself of all the income he earns at the alms-house. But this decision causes unforeseen complications. The first of his Barsetshire series, this novel provides a detailed, gently satirical portrayal of 19th century British life.

Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist. The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution.

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

Meet the Otis family: Mister and Missus, and their four children - Washington; the twins called Stars and Stripes; and their daughter, Virginia. They've just moved from America and into the English country manor of Canterville Chase. Though rumors persist that the house is haunted, the Otis' have none of it, and set about making the house their own. Then come the mysterious clanking chains and the bloodstains on the floor, and soon even the Otis family must come face to face with that most feared of creatures - The Canterville Ghost. But will the Ghost be able to survive his encounters with the erstwhile Americans?

Dr Wortle's School introduces the unassuming Mr. Peacocke and his polite, newly-wed bride, as they join the teaching staff of an elite and exclusive Christian boys' school. Dr. Wortle, a devoted English scholar and the headmaster of the seminary academy, welcomes his two new teachers, confident that they will uphold the high standards of education at the school.

They look alike, but they live in very different worlds. Tom Canty, impoverished and abused by his father, is fascinated with royalty. Edward Tudor, heir to the throne of England, is kind and generous but wants to run free and play in the river - just once. How insubstantial their differences truly are becomes clear when a chance encounter leads to an exchange of clothing - and roles. The pauper finds himself caught up in the pomp and folly of the royal court, and the prince wanders horror-stricken through the lower strata of English society.

Thomas Jefferson was an avid book-collector, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer - a man who prided himself on his knowledge of classical and modern languages and whose marginal annotations include quotations from Euripides, Herodotus, and Milton. And yet there has never been a literary life of our most literary president.

Between Silk and Cyanide presents the memoir of the man who transformed code-making and code-breaking for the Special Operations Executive in World War Two. Leo Marks later went on to become an award-winning scriptwriter.

Wickedly narrated by David Stifel, and written in 1729, this satiric essay on how to solve Ireland's chronic poverty is perhaps more shocking today than when it was written. In the 1960s, when Peter O'Toole did a public reading of this piece in Dublin, he very nearly started a riot. Newspapers the following day lambasted O'Toole's "shocking bad taste." Whether shocking satire, or Monty-Pythonesque surrealism, this essay has continually managed to offend people for well over 3 centuries. Enjoy! (and Thank You!)

The hero is anyone who has ever longed for escape to a better life. The time is tomorrow. The place is a Utopian America. This is the backdrop for Edward Bellamy's prophetic novel about a young Boston gentleman who is mysteriously transported from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, from a world of war and want to a world of peace and plenty.

Modern parallels abound in the plight of Cambridge-educated mathematics wiz Vivie Warren, who discovers that her comfortable upbringing was financed in unspeakable ways. George Bernard Shaw pits a clever heroine against a memorable gallery of rogues in this superbly intelligent (and still shocking) comedy, banned for eight years from the English stage.

Peter, the naughty rabbit, helps himself to the crops from Mr. MacGregor's garden, to the dismay of all.

When Sergeant Major Morris brings a mummified monkey’s paw to the White family, they embrace it as a morbid curiosity. When they learn that an old Fakir has enchanted the paw, they continue to treat the thing lightly. But the workings of the paw, once set in motion, cannot be undone, no matter what they try.

Trollope's classic novel features Reverend Septimus Harding, the elderly warden of the Barchester alms-house. However, for a man devoting himself to helping the poor, Reverend Harding's salary is rather lucrative. Aiming to ease his conscience and quiet his neighbors' whispers, he decides to divest himself of all the income he earns at the alms-house. But this decision causes unforeseen complications. The first of his Barsetshire series, this novel provides a detailed, gently satirical portrayal of 19th century British life.

Through a series of calculated moves that involve death and a large inheritance, a small community is rocked and shrouded in mystery at the hands of the conniving Sir Percival Glyde, who is interested only in making himself wealthy at the hands of others.... Celebrated as one of the first popular mystery novels, The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, skillfully incorporates the twisting and turning of more than a few plot lines that all manage to converge beautifully at the end of the work.

From the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes a new tale of romance, heartbreak, and tentacled mayhem. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities.

Benjamin Franklin was a Founding Father of America and had an enormous impact on America as it is today. In addition to that, there are many little-known facts about the man who is Benjamin Franklin. Unlike many of the other Founding Fathers, he started out in humble circumstances. From a young age, Benjamin Franklin fought for the rights of America at home and abroad. Yet, he bore the burdens of leadership and never shirked nor faltered in his mission. His greatest asset was his charm and friendliness, but he had his detractors as well and felt the emotional impact of that.

Famous for its irregular time sequence and twist ending, this is Bierce's most anthologized story.

Can You Forgive Her? is the first of the six in the Palliser series. Trollope inextricably binds together the issues of parliamentary election and marriage, of politics and privacy. The values and aspirations of the governing stratum of Victorian society are ruthlessly examined, and none remains unscathed. But above all Trollope focuses on the predicament of women. 'What should a woman do with her life?' asks Alice Vavasor of herself, and this theme is echoed by every other woman in the audiobook.

In her graceful, compelling style, Dava Sobel chronicles the history of the Copernican Revolution, relating the story of astronomy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages. In its midst will be her play, And the Sun Stood Still, imagining the dialogue that would have transpired between Rheticus and Copernicus in their months together. As she achieved with her bestsellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, Sobel expands the bounds of science writing, giving us an unforgettable portrait of scientific achievement.

This pamphlet, first published in 1776, set in print the word every American was thinking about, but none dared say: independence! It was published anonymously in New York, selling 120,000 copies in the first 3 months and half a million in that same year. Its author, Thomas Paine, wrote in a language that could be understood by any reasonably literate colonist. But more important than it being so well received, is that it captured the American colonists' imaginations and was a primary catalyst to the independence movement in the United States. Noted American historian Bernard Bailyn called it "the most brilliant pamphlet written during the American Revolution, and one of the most brilliant ever written in the English language."

This course examines the life of Benjamin Franklin and his influence on both American and world history. He remains the model of the American thinker - a man who was interested in nearly everything, and who pursued those interests with an admirable and contagious passion. To study Franklin's life is to learn not only the history of a single man, but to understand some of the most monumental changes in all of human history.

Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist. The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution.