This is a collection of 27 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for January 2017.

Orphaned Mary Lennox is sent to live with her uncle in Yorkshire, and finds herself in a house full of secrets and mysteries.

This is a volume of poetry by Harry Graham. Graham was known for his satirical poetry, and this volume is a great example of his art. In this volume, Graham charicatures several famous historical or legendary personages, and allows himself some reflections on the story of that person's life. - Summary by Carolin

This is a volume of Canadian poet Arthur Weir. Many of the poems are set around the turn of a year, referencing the season in different ways, and touching upon almost every emotion and association we might connect with winter. - Summary by Carolin

The author worked as a dude wrangler Glacier National Park and lived on his ranch near Eureka, Monatana. This is the first book of his poems, which he often recited for the tourists. His other books include, "Giggles from Glacier Guides" and "Mountain Memories." - Summary by Larry Wilson

The life and accomplishments of England's sole title holder of "The Great." King Alfred defended England from Viking invasions and ushered in an era of learning and progress for the British Isles. Summary by Ryan Cherrick.

2012 is the 200th anniversary of Dickens' birth. This is the third volume of this collection, which aimed to catalogue as many as possible of Dickens' short works which had not previously been recorded for LibriVox. (Summary by Ruth Golding)

A series of tales -- told by men, of course -- about women. Though the book first appeared in 1842, Balzac later added to it as an addenfum a tale of 1831, La Grande Bretèche. That will be read later, keeping it separate to mirror the form of the English translation here used. (More to follow) - Summary by Nicholas Clifford

Abraham Lincoln: A History is an 1890 ten-volume account of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, written by John Nicolay and John Hay, who were his personal secretaries during the American Civil War. Volume 4 chronicles Lincoln's life from November 1861 through August 1862. (Summary adapted from wikipedia by Ann Boulais)

Many books on sports of various kinds have been written, but outside of an occasional article in periodicals devoted to bee literature, but little has been written on the subject of bee hunting. Therefore, I have tried, in this volume, Bee Hunting for Pleasure and Profit, to give a work in compact form, the product of what I have learned along this line during the forty years in nature's school room. - Summary by John Ready Lockard

This short, anonymous work is thought to have been written in the 1300s by a member of the lay-religious group called ‘The Friends of God.’ Its central teaching is that humans can become one with God by living a holy, selfless life in which our will is subsumed into God’s, of which Christ is the ultimate example. Martin Luther discovered, named, and published Theologia Germanica in 1516, declaring that, "Next to the Bible and St. Augustine, no book has ever come into my hands from which I ha ...

It's a cold and foggy night in London. A man is horribly murdered in his bedroom, the door locked and bolted on the inside. Scotland Yard is stumped. Yet the seemingly unsolvable case has, as Inspector Grodman says, "one sublimely simple solution" that is revealed in a final chapter full of revelations and a shocking denouement. Detective fiction afficionados will be happy to learn that all the evidence to solve the case is provided. One of the earliest “locked room” mystery stories, The Big ...

George R. Sims was a journalist of the Victorian era who was mostly concerned with social reforms. He was very interested in the life of the poor. This is a dramatic monologue by an inmate at a workhouse, exposing the hypocrisy of the law. A vivid ballad which you would not be able to resist. - Summary by Stav Nisser.

This is a series of seven letters by the eminent author of scandalous romances, Elinor Glyn, written to her godchild Caroline in the years 1912-1914. The Letters give Caroline advice on how best to find her way in life, particularly to matrimony. They contain such gems of wisdom as "It is better to marry the life you like, because after a while the man does not matter", that beauty is of "colossal importance", and that a woman will do well never to ask her husband any questions. The letters ...

This is a volume of poems by Florence Earle Coates. The poems in this volume describe the Zeitgeist perfectly - not only are they in style in many ways representative for American poetry around the turn of the last century, but moreover, many of the poems are discussing the current events of the time. This volume contains poems on the Cuban War of Independence, the coronation of Edward VII of England, and poems to several politically and culturally prominent persons of the time. - Summary by ...

Jean McKishnie Blewett was a Canadian journalist, author and poet. Blewett published her first novel, Out of the Depths in 1879. In 1896, she won a $600 prize from the Chicago Times-Herald for her poem "Spring". She was a regular contributor to The Globe, a Toronto newspaper and in 1898 became editor of its Homemakers Department. In 1919, assisted by the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, she published a booklet titled Heart Stories to benefit war charities. During this time she ...

Eighteen short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Topics include philosophy and thought -- Plato, Aristotle, Leonhard Euler, Henri Amiel, and the French Rights of Man; adventure and mystery -- the ascent of Aconcagua and the mystery ship Mary Celeste; science -- a new comet and lichen dyes; portraits of the seasons by Lucy Maud Montgomery: biographies of Charles Dickens and Clara and Robert Schuman; a history of the Transcendental utopia Fruitlands by ...

The group of stories brought together in this volume differ from legends because they have, with one exception,no core fact at the centre, from myths because they make no attempt to personify or explain the forces or processes of nature, from fairy stories because they do not often bring to the stage actors from a different nature from ours.... The stories which make up this volume are closer to experience and come, from the most part, nearer to the every-day happenings of life. (Summary by ...

Walter Besant was a novelist and historian, and his topographical and historical writings, ranging from prehistoric times to the nineteenth century, were probably best known through the detailed 10-volume Survey of London published after his death. This earlier single volume covers, in less depth, the whole period from prehistory until the 19th century. The book appears originally to have been written for boys, and, indeed, the chapters are called "Lessons". However, it is a very readable hi ...

Eric Blackburn's strange adventures begin when the ship on which he is engaged as fourth officer is struck by an enormous meteorite and sinks within minutes, and Blackburn is the sole survivor out of the 535 people on board that ship. Through extraordinary luck he reaches an overturned lifeboat into which he saves himself, and from which he is rescued by the Yorkshire Lass. The Yorkshire Lass, however, brings with it a new adventure, as it is on a quest for hidden treasure on a mysterious tr ...

In perhaps the most audacious military enterprise in the history of human conquest, Cortez, with only a few hundred men, conquered a civilization of tens of thousands. This is the story of an Englishman who boards a merchant ship destined for the New World, but a shipwreck strands him in Pre-Columbian Mexico, and Roger must find a way to avoid becoming one of the many human sacrifices offered to the Aztec gods.

One soft summer evening, when Woodville was crowned with the glory and beauty of the joyous season, three strangers presented themselves before the Grant family, and asked for counsel and assistance. The party consisted of two boys and a girl, and they belonged to that people which the traditions of the past have made the "despised race;" but the girl was whiter and fairer than many a proud belle who would have scorned her in any other capacity than that of a servant; and one of the boys was ...

Much is written about success and failure in the career of literature, about the reasons which enable one man to reach the front, and another to earn his livelihood, while a third, in appearance as likely as either of them, fails and, perhaps, faints by the way. Mr. R. F. Murray, the author of The Scarlet Gown, was among those who do not attain success, in spite of qualities which seem destined to ensure it, and who fall out of the ranks. To him, indeed, success and the rewards of this world ...

Subtitled "The Way to Win Him:, this play is placed in Paris - a change from many others of Farquhar's plays which used English settings - though still presented to the same English audience. "This comedy ... had a reception, on the first night of its appearance, far inferior to that of his other productions. It was, with difficulty, saved from condemnation; and the author ... boldly charged some secret enemies with having attempted its destruction." (I can sympathize with the author; I thin ...

The success of “The Magistrate” was immediate, and the Court Theatre was crowded night after night for more than a year, the play being presented over 300 times. So prosperous was the run that there was no cessation during the Summer holiday season. This success, however, was not confined to London, for three companies were soon carrying the play triumphantly over the English provinces, while in September 1885 Mr. Pinero went to New York to produce his work. How can you resist a comedy whose ...

In 1915 Oscar Hornung, son of the famous author E W Hornung, was killed at Ypres after less than a year as a soldier in Flanders. He was only 20. Two years later E W Hornung volunteered to help run one of the YMCA canteens close behind the front line. This book is Hornung’s own account of the time he spent in Northern France: first helping in a canteen, then running a library for the enlisted men. He wanted to be near the place where his son died, to meet the young soldiers who were fighting ...

Immanuel Kant gave a series of lectures on anthropology 1772-1773, 1795-1796 at the University of Königsberg, which was founded in 1544. His lectures dealt with recognizing the internal and external in man, cognition, sensuousness, the five senses, as well as the soul and the mind. They were gathered together and published in 1798 and then published in English in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy in 1867, volumes 9-16. Therefore, several texts will be used for this book. I was able to fi ...

Institutes of the Christian Religion is John Calvin's seminal work on Protestant systematic theology. Highly influential in the Western world and still widely read by theological students today, it was published in Latin in 1536 and in his native French in 1541, with the definitive editions appearing in 1559 (Latin) and in 1560 (French). The book was written as an introductory textbook on the Protestant faith for those with some learning already and covered a broad range of theological topic ...

The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, by Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné, is a classic work on the great events that re-opened the Christian gospel to a needy world. It tells of how the twenty-year-old Martin Luther, browsing through books in the library at the University of Erfurt, takes down from the shelf a particular volume that has caught his interest. He has never seen anything like it. It is a Bible! He is astonished to find in this volume so much more than the fragments ...