Bent Northrop Memorial Library

This version of Nature is an 1843 revision to the popular essay written and published in 1836. In the original essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, and suggested that reality can be understood by studying nature. Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: Commodity, Beauty, Language and Discipline. These distinctions define how humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication...

A collection of short stories includes the title story, in which a famous writer, who just learned he may have a brain tumor, must decide how to care for his distant, American Indian father who is slowly dying.

American author, critic, newspaper man, and iconoclast, H. L. Mencken maintained that women are smarter than men and cited numerous examples of the female's overwhelming skill and cunning to support his position. Originally published in 1922, this book considers topics that remain of vital interest to today's readers, including monogamy and polygamy, prostitution, the double standard, sexual harassment, and declining birth and marriage rates. Written...

More than 100 holiday stories spread the special joy, wonder and blessings of the season with its tales of finding the perfect Christmas tree, being with family, seeing the awe in a child's eyes and enjoying the magic of the season.

First published in 1799, Charles Brockden Brown's "Edgar Huntly, Or Memoirs of a Sleep Walker" is the story of its title character, who upon learning of the death of the brother of his friend and love interest, Mary Waldegrave, visits where he died in the woods in rural Pennsylvania. There he discovers a man, Clithero, a servant from a nearby farm, suspiciously lurking about near the scene of Waldegrave's murder. Suspecting Clithero, Edgar begins...

This 1896 book was assembled for a private printing when it was discovered that the author, a distinguished critic and novelist, had written nine anonymous pieces for the English newspaper. Here are "English Literature," "Browning," "Wordsworth," "Amiel's 'Journal Intime," "Robert Elsmere," "Their Majesties' Servants," "Ferdinand Fabre," and two more.

This 1893 collection of eighteen pieces is Grahame's first book. Rather than fantasies, it contains genial, rambling essays on such subjects as "The Romance of the Road," "The Rural Pan," "The White Poppy," "The Fairy Wicket," and "The Lost Centaur." Some of the essays prefigure his fictions, especially his masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows.

H. M. Tomlinson was a war correspondent for the British army in France during World War I, an experience that made him fervently anti-war. Waiting for Daylight, published shortly after World War I, is a memorable and penetrating collection of essays about his experiences during the war and his reactions to modern warfare.

Heretics by G. K. Chesterton Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel...

A collection of essays on the natural world during a year spent in the Blue Ridge Mountains reflects the author's interactions with her wilderness surroundings.