History

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  Utilitarianism – Ed. Heydt

  John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism is a philosophical defense of utilitarianism, a moral theory stating that right actions are those that tend to promote overall happiness.…

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  An Imperative Duty

  An Imperative Duty tells the story of Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman on the verge of marriage who has been raised by her aunt to…

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  Candide

  The philosophical problem of evil—that a supposedly good God could allow terrible human suffering—troubled the minds of eighteenth-century thinkers as it troubles us today. Voltaire’s…

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  The Man in the Moone

  Arguably the first work of science fiction in English, Francis Godwin’s The Man in the Moone was published in 1638, pseudonymously and posthumously. The novel,…

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  Uncle Tom’s Cabin

  With its gripping plot and pungent dialogue, Uncle Tom’s Cabin offers readers today a passionate portrait of a nation on the verge of disunion and…

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  The Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan

  In 1810, the orientalist scholar Charles Stewart translated and published an extraordinary travel narrative written by a Persian-speaking Indian poet and scholar named Mirza Abu…

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  The Excellencies of Robert Boyle

  Robert Boyle, one of the most important intellectuals of the seventeenth century, was a gifted experimenter, an exceptionally able philosopher, and a dedicated Christian. In…

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  Prisons and Prisoners

  Prisons and Prisoners is the autobiography of aristocratic suffragette Constance Lytton. In it, she details her militant actions in the struggle to gain the vote…

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  Ramona

  Ramona has often been compared to Uncle Tom’s Cabin for its influence on American social policy, and this is the only edition available that presents…

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  The History of the Kings of Britain

  The History of the Kings of Britain is arguably the most influential text written in England in the Middle Ages. The work narrates a linear…

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  Suffragette Sally

  Published in 1911, Suffragette Sally is one of the best-known popular novels promoting the cause of women’s suffrage in Britain at the beginning of the…

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  Secret History; or, The Horrors of St. Domingo and Laura

  Based on Leonora Sansay’s eyewitness accounts of the final days of French rule in Saint Domingue (Haiti), Secret History is a vivid account of race…

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  Jack Sheppard

  In London Labour and the London Poor (1861) Henry Mayhew wrote, “Of all books, perhaps none has ever had so baneful effect upon the young…

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  The Scottish Chiefs

  Rooted in political controversy, gender warfare, violence, and revolution, Jane Porter’s The Scottish Chiefs is the epic story of William Wallace’s struggle for Scottish independence…

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  Factory Lives

  Factory Lives contains four works of great importance in the field of nineteenth-century working-class autobiography: John Brown’s A Memoir of Robert Blincoe; William Dodd’s A…

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  The Memoir of 1603 and the Diary of 1616-1619

  Anne Clifford’s memoir for the year 1603 and her diary of 1616-1619 are invaluable records of the daily life and social and family relationships of…

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  Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

  First published in 1893, when Stephen Crane was only twenty-one years old, Maggie is the harrowing tale of a young woman’s fall into prostitution and…

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  The Autobiography of Ashley Bowen (1728-1813)

  The first American sailor known to write his own autobiography, Ashley Bowen remains a valuable storyteller who can speak to today’s readers about the maritime…

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  She

  First published in 1886–87, H. Rider Haggard’s imperial romance follows its English heroes from the quiet rooms of Cambridge to the uncharted interior of Africa…

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  The Distaff Gospels

  The Distaff Gospels (Les Évangiles des Quenouilles), a fascinating fifteenth-century collection of more than 250 popular beliefs, constitutes a kind of encyclopedia of late medieval…

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  The Idea of Being Free

  Mary Hays (1759-1843) is often best remembered for her early revolutionary novels The Memoirs of Emma Courtney and The Victim of Prejudice. In this collection,…

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  Obi

  “Three-Fingered Jack,” the protagonist of this 1800 novel, is based on the escaped slave and Jamaican folk hero Jack Mansong, who was believed to have…

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  Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

  Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, first published in 1785, is still one of the most widely read and influential works of moral philosophy.…

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  Illustrations of Political Economy

  Published in 1832, Illustrations of Political Economy established Harriet Martineau as both a successful and controversial author and a pioneer of nineteenth-century “social problem” writing.…