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What Authors?
GREAT WRITERS are great company.
Go sailing, flying, riding, ballooning . . . travel to the stars in the
company of Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kipling, or Zane Gray.
Unravel the puzzles set up for your amusement by Agatha Christie, Poe, and
Arthur Conan Doyle. Shudder wonderfully over Mary Shelley's
"Frankenstein" (yes, that's the real one!), and horror classics like
Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw."
The kids in your life (and the one in your heart) are in for a
treat: the marvelous fairy tales of Andrew Lang — yes
they're all there! And you can have them all!
There are plenty of Tom Swift books, too, and Anna Sewell's
classic for horse-lovers, "Black Beauty," and Lewis Carroll's
wonderful "Alice in Wonderland." And that's just a start!
In the mood for a romance or a historical story? even at
midnight or on a Sunday night, you can download the books of
Jane Austin, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Alexandre Dumas, and
Charlotte Bronte. And Charles Dickens! And Trollope! And Sojourner Truth! And so many more!
And here's information about more of our great classic authors. Just look at the wonderful company you'll keep! Your mind
will never go hungry again!
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Author: Marcus Aurelius
(121-180) The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius was probably the greatest of
the Stoic philosophers. When he was still a very young man, his uncle
was adopted by the Emperor Hadrian and thus made the heir apparent to
the ruler. The uncle in his turn adopted his philosopher-nephew who
eventually became emperor.
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Author: Jane Austen
(1775-1817) Jane Austin was the seventh child of English clergyman
George Austin and his wife, Cassandra. At 17, she was already attempting
serious writing, and by the time she was 20, she had already completed
a novel called "Elinor and Marianne," which later became the basis for
"Sense and Sensibility." The first versions of "First Impressions"
— later to become her masterwork, "Pride and Prejudice" —
were written in the following two years.
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Author: Charlotte Bronte
(1816-1855) Charlotte Bronte, her two older sisters, her younger sisters
Emily and Anne, and her brother Branwell were the children of Patrick
Bronte, the rector of Haworth, in Yorkshire, England. Their mother,
Marie, also the daughter of a clergyman, died in 1821, when Charlotte
was five years old and Anne, the youngest, was not yet two.
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Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
(1875-1950) The Chicago-born creator of one of the best-loved (and
often parodied) adventure characters, "Tarzan of the Apes," Edgar Rice
Burroughs had also been a soldier, a business executive, a gold miner,
a cowboy, and a policeman. After writing "Tarzan" in 1914, he produced
more than 20 sequels which were translated into more than 50 languages,
and which formed the basis of dozens of films. In 1917, Burroughs also
created the character of John Carter of Mars, plus many other adventure
tales with a science fiction theme.
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Author: Lewis Carroll
(1832-1898) Englishman Charles Dodson thought of himself as a scholar
and teacher of mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, rather than as
an author. When he did write books, his first published work was a
syllabus of plane geometry, followed by a biography of Euclid. His best
known books, The Alice In Wonderland series, reflect the complex
abstraction of higher mathematics, at the same time capturing the simple
innocence of childhood.
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Author: Agatha Christie
(1891-1976) English mystery writer, Agatha Christie, was the creator
of detective Hercule Poirot, and also of the clever, innocent-seeming
Miss Marple, a sedate elderly lady from a small English town. These
characters have taken on such a life of their own that they made Christie
(Mrs. Mallowan) a rich and famous woman. In addition, they helped her
earn the honor of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and
the right to call herself Dame Agatha.
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Author: Charles Dickens
(1812-1870) The prodigious Charles Dickens, coming from an impoverished
and unhappy childhood, was a lifelong champion of hungry children and
needy families. His books had an immense impact on the social conscience
of his day. But although he pities the down-at-the-heel slackers he
writes about, he laughs at them — as well as at the pompous bullies
in his stories. His massive novels are crammed with incident —
catastrophic love affairs, murders, unjust accusations, lost heirs,
drunken brawls, monsters, dying children, and mistaken identities. He
shows all that is humorous, piteous, dramatic, and melodramatic about
the complex lives of his many hundreds of memorable characters, and
frequently . . . all at the same time!
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Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(1859-1930) Most readers know English writer Arthur Conan Doyle as the
creator of Sherlock Holmes, with his hawkish profile and rapier-quick
mind. Many also know that Doyle was a doctor before he was a writer,
and thus in real life more like Watson than Holmes. But fewer know that
his 1902 knighthood was conferred, not because he was the creator of the
Great Detective, but to acknowledge his outstanding medical work with the
Langman field hospital during the Bloemfontein, and a history of the Boer
War in 1900, and a pamphlet (a small monograph on the subject?) written
in 1902, defending the actions of the British army.
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Author: Zane Grey
(1875-1939) Zane Gray was perhaps the most successful writer of Western
novels in the world. Born in Zanesville, Ohio, he was a New York dentist
until 1904, after which he authored some 60 novels of the old west,
including "Riders of the Purple Sage," "The Lone Star Ranger," "Code of
the West," and "West of the Pecos." Many of his novels were made into
films, and many continue to be best-sellers, over 60 years after their
author's death.
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Author: Henry James
(1843-1916) The shy, bookish Bostonian, younger brother of
psychologist-philosopher William James, is acknowledged as one of the
most influential theorists of fiction in the English-speaking world. By
the time he was 25, he was a regular contributor to the prestigious
Atlantic Monthly and The North American Review and was hailed
as the "Best writer of short stories in America."
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Author: Rudyard Kipling
(1865-1936) The British author and poet, Rudyard Kipling, was born in
Bombay, India, to British parents. His father was both an artist and a
scholar and was for many years the curator of the Lahore Museum there. The
description of the Keeper of the Wonder House in the opening chapter of
Kim is a description of — and a tribute to — his father.
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Author: Lao-Tze
Attributed to the Chinese scholar Lao-Tzu (6th century B.C.) and codified
over 2,000 years ago, the Tao-Teh King contains between 5,227 and 5,722
words and is often called the 5,000 character classic.
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Author: O. Henry
(1862-1910) O. Henry was the pen name of Sidney Porter. His early life
was one of hard knocks and strong recoveries. He was born in North
Carolina just before the start of the Civil War. When he was 20 years old,
he moved to Texas to become a cowboy, but was set to herding sheep
and carrying the mail. So two years later, he moved to Austin Texas, and
became a bank teller. After his marriage in 1887, he launched an humor
magazine, and when that failed, he moved on to become a reporter,
columnist and occasional cartoonist at the Houston Post.
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Author: Plato
(circa 428 B.C. - circa 348 B.C) The philosopher Plato was arguably
the foremost writer and teacher of ancient Greece, and his influence on
thought has been apparent for over 2,400 years!
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Author: Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849) Son of an American actor and an English actress, Poe
was orphaned early, and he was adopted and raised by his godfather,
John Allen, and his wife. After a classical education, he entered
the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, but left the academy without
graduating, due at least in part to his gambling and drinking. He began
writing and publishing poetry before he was out of his 'teens.
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Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850-1894) Despite the fact that the Scottish novelist, poet, and
essayist suffered from acutely poor health all his life, he traveled
widely, going to America in 1879 and lived there for a year while he
wooed and married his American wife. They journeyed across Europe and,
after being diagnosed with tuberculosis, to the south seas where they
lived until his death at the age of forty-four.
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Author: Sojourner Truth ( autobiography narrated to Olive Gilbert )
Born a slave and first named Isabella, she took the name Sojourner Truth after attaining her freedom. Hers is the story of the impact she made on her society through effort and the force of her personality. It is a stirring, true tale of a remarkable woman and her tireless work to change the inequities of the world she lived in. It was completed during her lifetime with her friend, Olive Gilbert, who was a member of the free community where she settled during the latter part of her life. This important book is a must-read for every American!
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Author: Mark Twain
(1835-1910) Sam Clemens (Mark Twain), a native of Missouri, lived and
worked along the Mississippi River as a young man. With not much formal
schooling, he was apprenticed to a printer, and as a young man he worked
as a printer and a newspaper writer. He enjoyed a short but successful
career as a riverboat pilot (a highly respectable position), and after
a brief stint in the militia during the Civil War, he joined his brother
in Nevada and resumed writing — this time as free-lance writer and
columnist.
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Author: Jules Verne
(1828-1905) Born in Nantes, France, Verne's first training was as a
lawyer, but he soon turned to adventure writing. His first success was
Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon), and thereafter,
he produced a long series of marvelous tales at the rate of approximately
one a year for the next 25 years. His most successful books include
Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in 80 days.
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Author: H. G. Wells
(1866-1946) Born in Bromley, Kent, England, Wells had an unpropitious
start in life. Apprenticed to a draper when he was 14, he tried and
rejected several other trades, and after finding work as a schoolmaster's
assistant, he won a scholarship to study biology and graduated from
London University in 1888. His best known books today are his early
works of science fiction.
. . . PLUS MANY MORE!
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