The novel takes place in in Lagerlöf's native Värmland and is about the tenant farmer Jan in Skrolycka and his daughter Glory Goldie Sunnycastle. He loves his daughter more than anything else, but after she moves to Stockholm at age 18, she stops sending letters home. The father sinks into a dream world where he imagines she has become a noble empress of «Portugallia», making him a great Emperor.
This book tells the story of Vincent Wingfield, young farmer who lost his father and whose mother is in charge of an estate called the Orangery. Vincent is preparing to take over the reins when he came of age but the war starts and he joins the fights for the Confederate States of America, even though he is against slavery. Vincent leaves the overseer Jonas Pearson, notorious for being the tyrant, in charge of the Orangery. Vincent gets to taste of action at Bull Run and from that point he works his way up through many adventures, meeting all the major Southern figures of that time such as Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart and finally Robert E. Lee. Vincent gets wounded twice, involved in a variety of chases, and been captured twice, the second time being treated as a spy and coming across Pearson, who had thrown in his lot with the North.
James Balmes is well and favorably known to the public by his excellent work on European civilization, —a work which has been translated into the principal languages of Europe. In that work he proved himself a man of free and liberal thought, of brilliant genius, and varied and profound learning. But his work on the bases of philosophy is his masterpiece, and, taken as a whole, the greatest work that has been published on that important subject in the nineteenth century."
Botchan, or a young master, grows up in Tokyo as a reckless and rambunctious youth. His parents favor his older brother, and he is also not well regarded in the neighborhood, having a reputation as the local roughneck. When his parents die, Botchan takes money from the inheritance and goes to study physics. Upon graduating, he accepts a job teaching middle school mathematics, but his arrogance and quick temper immediately lead to clashes with the students and staff. Mischief by the students turns out to be just the first salvo in a broader web of intrigue and villainy. The school's head teacher (Red Shirt) and English teacher (Squash) are vying for the hand of the local beauty (Madonna), and two camps have formed within the middle school staff. Botchan aligns with Squash and the head mathematics teacher (Porcupine) while they start a fight against the system and plot against Red Shirt.
Excerpt: «In the first chapter „History of Greek Poetry,“ Schlegel speaks of the religious rites and mysteries of the primitive Greeks, and of the Orphic poetry to which they gave rise. Contrary to the opinion of many scholars who, though they admit the present form of the Orphic hymns to be the work of a later period, yet refer their substance to a very remote antiquity, Schlegel assigns their origin to the age of Hesiod. Enthusiasm, he says, is the characteristic of the Orphic poetry—repose that of the Homeric poems.»
After the World War II Australia is invaded and occupied by the cruel 'Paramount Power' from the Asia. The Cambasians rule Australia by the treaty made in the war and 'white population' of the country has gone from 7 to 2 million. In 1966, after some twenty years of long guerilla war and many lost battles, Australian people are ready to win the Pacific War and be independent again.
This book is not intended to be a History of Napoleon the First, but simply to reproduce the bulk of the Caricatures and Satires published in England on our great enemy, with as much of history as may help to elucidate them. The majority of the caricatures are humorous; others are silly, or spiteful—as will occasionally happen nowadays; and some are too coarse for reproduction—so that a careful selection has had to be made.
Excerpt: «Seagulls were flying past us in clouds, and sporting like domestic birds about the vessel, while many of the adjoining roofs were clustered with them; the wild-duck and the water-hen were diving under our very stern in search of food; and shoals of porpoises were every moment rolling by, turning up their white bellies to the light, and reveling in safety amid the sounds and sights of a mighty city, as though unconscious of the vicinity of danger.»
"Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets" in 2 volumes is one of the best-known works by William Howitt, first published in 1847, that features the biographical accounts of the most distinguished literary figures among the British. Contents: Geoffrey Chaucer Edmund Spenser Shakespeare Abraham Cowley John Milton Samuel Butler John Dryden Joseph Addison John Gay Alexander Pope Dean Swift James Thomson William Shenstone Chatterton Thomas Gray Oliver Goldsmith Robert Burns William Cowper Mrs. Tighe John Keats Percy Bysshe Shelley Lord Byron George Crabbe James Hogg Samuel Taylor Coleridge Felicia Hemans L. E. L. Sir Walter Scott Thomas Campbell Robert Southey Joanna Baillie William Wordsworth James Montgomery Walter Savage Landor Leigh Hunt Samuel Rogers Thomas Moore Ebenezer Elliott John Wilson Waller Bryan Procter Alfred Tennyson Concluding Remarks