Essays & Short Works
- Philosophical Travelogues
- Essays on Society and Culture
- Essays for Personal Growth
- Explorations in Science and Thought
- Explorations in Psychology
- Political Essays and Reflections
- Political Essays and Manifestos
- Philosophical Essays on Existence
Crime
Clarence Darrow was an American lawyer. He remains notable for his wit and agnosticism, which marked him as one of the most famous American …
Lectures on Landscape
Lectures on Landscape presents a thought-provoking exploration of landscape painting through the eyes of John Ruskin, a prominent artist and…
Three Years In Europe
William Wells Brown was born a slave, near Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Elizabeth, was a slave--his father a white man who never acknowl…
The Humbugs of the World
P. T. Barnum exposes some of the chief humbugs of the world with his usual entertaining style. He looks at medicine and quacks, ghosts, witc…
Essay on the Creative Imagination
"It is quite generally recognized that psychology has remained in the semi-mythological, semi-scholastic period longer than most attemp…
Emily Dickinson on Death
Emily Dickinson is one of the most intriguing of American poets. Since she grew increasingly reclusive, very few of her poems were published…
An Introduction to Metaphysics
An Introduction to Metaphysics (Introduction a la Metaphysique) is a 1903 essay by Henri Bergson that explores the concept of reality. For B…
Doctor Jack's Soapbox Seminars
What if the cataclysmic Tunguska explosion of 1908 was caused, not by a meteor or a comet, but by a microscopic black hole?
... Well, like a…
The Relations of Saint Teresa of Avila
The Relations of Saint Teresa of Avila offers a profound glimpse into the spiritual journey of one of Christianity's most revered mystics. I…
Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
This is Mill’s first work on economics. It foreshadows his Political Economy which was the standard Anglo-American Economics textbook of the…
De Profundis
This short work of Wilde's was written during his two year incarceration for "gross indecency". This work is a letter which sorts …
Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War
Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War offers a critical examination of the potential consequences of nuclear conflict on a global scale. This ins…
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in May 1849, is an extended essay written by the English art critic and theorist John Ruskin. The…
The Moral Equivalent of War
The Moral Equivalent of War, the last public utterance of William James, is significant as expressing the opinions of a practical psychologi…
Familiar Letters on Chemistry
In Familiar Letters on Chemistry, Justus von Liebig, a pioneering German chemist, shares his insights on the vital role of chemistry in soci…
Write it Right
Witty, opinionated alphabetical examples of what Bierce considered poor (American) English and advice on alternatives - entertaining, though…
Sketches Of The Fair Sex
Sketches of the fair sex, in all parts of the world. To which are added rules for determining the precise figure, the degree of beauty, the …
Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot
Look! it's the science of sitting, No! it's the science of meditating, No! it's Zen. If you wanted to know anything regarding Zen Buddhism a…
American Notes
In American Notes, Rudyard Kipling, the Nobel Prize-winning author of the Jungle Book, visits the USA. As the travel-diary of an Anglo-India…
Kokoro
In an introductory paragraph, Lafcadio Hearn declares his intention: "The papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than …