This is H. G. Wells' 1915 novel, 'The Research Magnificent'. The story is presented as the efforts of one Mr. White to compile, collate, and preserve the life's work of his deceased academic friend, William Porphyry Benham. The tale centers around the recounting of Benham's attempts to live a noble life-an endeavor that brings him into conflict with his friends, his mother, and his wife. The Research Magnificent is widely considered as being among...

Typee is the first book by American writer Herman Melville, published in the early part of 1846, when Melville was 26 years old. Considered a classic in travel and adventure literature, the narrative is based on the author's actual experiences on the island Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands in 1842, supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and research from other books. The title comes from the valley of Taipivai, once known as...

This delightful eBook presents seven pieces from the rich heritage of Lafcadio Hearn-one of the first and most preeminent scholars to travel to and write about Japan. They are a natural outgrowth of Hearn's peerless philosophy: "If you have any feeling-no matter what-strongly latent in the mind (even only a haunting sadness or a mysterious joy), you may be sure that it is expressible." Hearn's language, his incomparable prose, ripened and mellowed...

First published in 1922, "One of Ours" is Willa Cather's Pulitzer Prize winning story of Claude Wheeler, a Nebraska native at the turn of the 20th century. Claude is a young man who finds himself conflicted by the constraints of his overly pious mother and the demands that his father's farm places on his education and life. While attending Temple College, a Christian university, Claude befriends Julius Erlich, whose free-thinking family begins to...

The book that inspired Rhonda Byrne to create The Secret is now available as an Ultimate Edition by Restored Classics Publishing. As a highly reproduced and sought after public domain work, Wallace D. Wattles' "The Science of Getting Rich" has been on the receiving end of more than a few typographical mistakes over the course of its life. Each transcribed presentation of the text appears to have been littered with its own set of misspellings and errors...

The Montessori Method (1912) is a work on pedagogy by Maria Montessori. Originally written in her native Italian to describe the work she carried out at the Casa dei Bambini in Rome, the book was translated into English during a period of increasing popularity for Montessori and her educational method in the United States. By 1913, over 100 Montessori schools had been opened in the United States, prompting the educator to travel to the country on...

Lithuanian born anarchist Emma Goldman immigrated to the United States at the age of sixteen. She first became attracted to anarchism following the Haymarket affair of 1886, a massacre in which seven police officers and an unknown number of civilians were killed during a march of striking Chicago workers. Eight anarchists were subsequently tried for murder. In the early part of the 20th century Emma Goldman would become one the most ardent supporters...

Persuasive and humane, this classic of philosophy represents one of the nineteenth century's most significant treatises on ethics. The Basis of Morality offers Schopenhauer's fullest examination of traditional ethical themes, and it articulates a descriptive form of ethics that contradicts the rationally based prescriptive theories. Starting with his polemic against Kant's ethics of duty, Schopenhauer anticipates the latter-day critics of moral philosophy....

Lafcadio Hearn was an English writer who was born in Greece, lived in Ireland, and then moved to the United States. He later moved to Japan, which had a great influence on his writing. Hearn is best known for his stories about Japan, especially his ghost stories and legends. Chita a Memory of Last Island was written while Hearn was living in New Orleans. Chita was a young white girl adopted by Spanish parents. The novella was based on the hurricane...

Thousands of books on interior design have come and gone since the 1897 publication of this pioneering manual, but The Decoration of Houses remains, thanks to the insightful and inspiring advice of its co-authors. Before she became the Pulitzer Prize—winning author of “The Age of Innocence”, Edith Wharton was a society matron, remodeling a summer home in Newport, Rhode Island. With the able assistance of architect Ogden Codman, Jr., Wharton...