Showing results by author "Mentor New York" in All Categories

Lincoln's first inaugural address was delivered on March 4th, 1861, as the North and South were sliding towards separation and Civil War. His second inaugural, given just weeks before his assassination, was also delivered on March 4th but four years later, in 1865. Just over a month later, April 18th, 1865, the Civil War ended with the surrender of the Confederate army. This was four days after Lincoln was shot on April 14th. He died the next day. - Summary by John Greenman

John Kendrick Bangs was an American author and satirist, and the creator of modern Bangasian Fantasy, the school of fantasy writing that sets the plot wholly or partially in the afterlife. (Wikipedia) Plot summary: J K Bangs has taken Alice from Lewis Carroll's “Alice in Wonderland” and lets her on a boring day travel with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat and the other of Carroll's familiar characters to Blunderland. The story is a well written Satire, a witty, humorous tale of adventure and city politics, a tale of Alice in a land where nothing is as it should be. (Summary...

The Achilleid is the third and unfinished work by the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius. In its introduction, it promises to present the life of the hero Achilles from his youth as a pupil under the centaur Chiron to his death at Troy. The author died however before writing most of the poem, leaving only one and a half books completed. The part that remains though holds interest for being unusual, bringing an account of the hero's early life and an episode in which his mother, Thetis, disguised him as a girl on the island of Scyros before he joined the Greek expedition against Troy. (Summary...

Thomas H. Huxley, an English biologist and essayist, was an advocate of the theory of evolution and a self-proclaimed agnostic. A talented writer, his essays helped to popularize science in the 19th century, and he is credited with the quote, "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." In The Advance of Science in the Last Half Century, he presents a summary of the major developments in Physics, Chemistry and Biology during the period 1839-1889 and their impact on society, within the historical context of philosophical thought and scientific inquiry going back to ...

Giovanna and Costantino Ledda are a happily married couple living with their young child in a Sardinian country village close to their extended family. Costantino is wrongly convicted of murdering his wicked uncle and with no way of supporting herself, Giovanna reluctantly divorces him and is driven to marry Brontu Dejas, a wealthy but brutish drunkard who has always lusted after her. As well as enduring a marriage amounting to slavery, Giovanna is derided by villagers for having two husbands. When Constantino is freed after the real murderer confesses to his crime, he and Giovanna are ...

In May Sinclair’s remarkable first novel, Audrey Craven is a beautiful young woman who has by her idiosyncrasies acquired a thoroughly undeserved reputation for originality. In fact, Audrey is a shallow, selfish, malleable person of negligible intelligence, with a fastidious horror of anyone who might be considered a nobody. Her pursuit of the stimulation of extraordinary minds (and her persistent fantasy of being somebody’s Muse) brings her into contact with serious women and men representing the profoundest passions of art, religion, science, and love. The question is, will these ...

The Adventures of Maya the Bee is an exciting tale for children of all ages. Themes of growth and development of courage and wisdom are found, as well as the extreme joy and satisfaction that Maya experiences in the beauty of creation and all creatures. Her ultimate and innate loyalty to her Nation of Bees is acted out in the final heroic scenes. This story gives us the delightful sense of having seen a small segment of the world through a Bee's eyes. (Summary by Brenda Price)

A story of two sets of lovers and the development of their relationships, set in rural France in the mid 19th century. - Summary by PeterTucker

“He had faith in his good fortune, in that power of attraction which he felt within him - a power so irresistible that all women yielded to it.”Though firmly set in 1880s Paris, Maupassant's gripping story of an amoral journalist on the make could, with only slight modifications of detail, be updated to the 1960s, to the Reagan-Thatcher years, or maybe to the present day. Anti-hero Georges Duroy is a down-at-heel ex-soldier of no particular talent. Good-looking but somewhat lacking in self-confidence, he discovers an ability to control and exploit women - whereupon his career in journalism...

Ball of Fat (Boule de Suif) by Guy de Maupassant is a classic short story set during the Franco-Prussian War. A group of French aristocrats, merchants, and nuns flee by carriage, accompanied by "Ball of Fat," a kind-hearted yet scorned prostitute. When a Prussian officer halts their journey, he demands that she sleep with him in exchange for their passage. Initially, the upper-class passengers support her refusal, but as days pass, they manipulate her into sacrificing herself for their freedom. Once she complies, they shun her, revealing their hypocrisy. The story is a sharp critique of social...

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy, and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox." He wrote in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. Chesterton wrote about 4000 essays on various subjects, and "Alarms and Discursions is one of his collections. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Karen Merline.)

From Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky to limericks written by Anonymous, some of the crankiest, most logical and lyrical people turn common sense upside-down. May they inspire the child inside of you to find your way through the most challenging situations with a new set of eyes! Josephine Dodge Daskam, aka Josephine Daskam Bacon, selected these nonsense verses with the permission of their authors Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, W.S. Gilbert, Guy Wetmore Carryl, Charles E. Carryl, Oliver Herford, Gelett Burgess, George du Maurier, and Rudyard Kipling. (Grace Buchanan)

A collection of nine enchanting short stories filled with curious beasts and unexpected endings. Included are The Bee-Man of Orn; The Griffin and the Minor Canon; Old Pipes and the Dryad; The Queen's Museum; Christmas Before Last: Or, The Fruit of the Fragile Palm; Prince Hassak's March; The Battle of the Third Cousins; The Banished King; and The Philopena(summary by Gryphon Perkins)

This book consists of brief biographical commentaries about Beethoven arranged by topic and followed by quotations by Beethoven about the topic. Note: There are incorrect dates in the quotation references that do not match the chronology of Beethoven's life but the reader has read them as printed in the original text.

"Backwater" is the second volume of "Pilgrimage," a series of thirteen autobiographical novels by Dorothy Richardson considered to have pioneered the "stream of consciousness" technique of writing. In a review of the first volume in the series, "Pointed Roofs" (The Egoist April 1918), May Sinclair first applied the term "stream of consciousness" in her discussion of Richardson's stylistic innovations. Richardson, however, preferred the term "interior monologue." Miriam Henderson, the central character in Pilgrimage, is based on the author's own life between 1891 and 1915. Richardson is also ...

Wilde’s meditation on capital punishment, the Ballad of Reading Gaol comes after he was convicted and imprisoned under charges of gross indecency. The charges stemmed from his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of the Marquis of Queensberry. It relates the story of an execution of a man who murdered his wife which Wilde witnessed during his internment. Published in 1898, it was Wilde’s last published poem as he would die in 1900 from cerebral meningitis, caused by syphilis.(Summary by John Gonzalez)

Allan Quatermain was the quintessential Victorian English gentleman cum African big-game hunter. In this book, the second in the series, Quaterman and his two good friends from KSM have tired of their dull and unfulfilling lives in England, and decide to search for the truth of an old tale about the existence of an isolated white kingdom deep in darkest Africa. Their journey and subsequent adventures are sure to satisfy those who enjoy tales of dangerous quests and heroic just-in-time derring-do. Allan Quatermain appears in some 15 to 18 stories or books by H. Rider Haggard. (The number varies...

Humorist Bill Nye was the first editor of the daily paper in Laramie, Wyoming, and named it the Laramie Boomerang in honor of his mule. As Nye’s son Frank said, something about the word “boomerang” piqued Nye’s imagination, as it described the "eccentricity of his orbit". “His mule, his mine, his newspaper, his [first] book [Bill Nye and Boomerang], all bore the trademark.” The book, according to Nye, includes "some little epics and ethereal flights of fancy..." and said "it affords me great pleasure...to know what a feeling of blessed rest and childlike confidence and assurance - ...

Volume 4 discusses some of the key leaders of the ancient world, including Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius and Constantine, as well as important religious figures such as Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine. Summary by KHand

The story of Billy Bunny and his friends and their adventures together. (Summary by mparker)