Kenneth Grahame (8 March 1859 - 6 July 1932) was a Scottish writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon; both books were later adapted into Disney films. While still a young man in his 20s, Grahame began to publish light stories in London periodicals such as the St. James Gazette. Some of these stories were collected and published as Pagan Papers in 1893. The Pagan Papers contains 18 stories by Grahame including among many others: "The Romance of the Road," "Marginalia," "Deus Terminus" and "The White Poppy."

The Forsyte Saga is a series of three novels and two interludes (intervening episodes) published between 1906 and 1921 by Nobel Prize-winning English author John Galsworthy. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of an upper middle-class British family, similar to Galsworthy's own. Only a few generations removed from their farmer ancestors, the family members are keenly aware of their status as "new money." The main character, Soames Forsyte, sees himself as a "man of property" by virtue of his ability to accumulate material possessions-but this does not succeed in bringing him pleasure. John Galsworthy (14 August 1867 - 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906-1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. This is Volume I of a three volume set.

The Siege of Lucknow was the prolonged defence of the Residency within the city of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. After two successive relief attempts had reached the city, the defenders and civilians were evacuated from the Residency, which was abandoned. Lucknow was the capital of the former state of Awadh. The prolonged defence there by the British proved to be one of the key episodes in the unsuccessful rebellion. Mainly there were issues of prestige and morale involved, but Lucknow also became the point at which the main forces of both the British and rebels were concentrated. The Honourable Julia Selina, Lady Inglis (19 April 1833 - 3 February 1904), was the daughter of Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford and the wife of Major-General Sir John Eardley Inglis who commanded the British troops at the Siege of Lucknow in 1857. She kept a diary of her life during the siege which was published as The Siege of Lucknow: a Diary.

Tales of the Tokugawa is a collection of Japanese horror stories collected by James S. de Benneville during the years he spent living in Japan, this is the first edition of the collection. Yotsuya Kwaidan, the story of Oiwa and Tamiya Iemon, is a tale of betrayal, murder and ghostly revenge. Arguably the most famous Japanese ghost story of all time, it has been adapted for film over 30 times, and continues to be an influence on Japanese horror today. Written in 1825 by Tsuruya Nanboku IV as a kabuki play, the original title was Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan. It is now generally shortened, and loosely translates as Ghost Story of Yotsuya.

Watkin Tench (6 October 1758 - 7 May 1833) was a British marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first settlement in Australia in 1788. His two accounts, "Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay" (this edition) and "Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson" provide an account of the arrival and first four years of the colony. Little more is known of him until he sailed as part of the First Fleet, although he records that he had spent time in the West Indies and his service record shows that he was promoted to Captain-Lieutenant in September 1782 and went on half-pay in May 1786. In October 1788, Robert Ross made a list of marines who wanted to stay in Australia either as soldiers or settlers. Tench headed the list as 'a soldier for one tour more of three years.' Among his achievements in the fledgling colony of New South Wales Tench was the first European to discover the Nepean River. Tench's accounts were influenced by the liberalism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the idea of the noble savage. He thus writes with some sympathy of the Aborigines. His writings include much information about the Aborigines of Sydney, the Gadigal and Cammeraygal (whom he referred to as "Indians"). He was friendly with Bennelong, Barangaroo and several others. He stayed in Sydney until December 1791 when he sailed home on the HMS Gorgon, arriving in Plymouth in July 1792.

Watkin Tench (6 October 1758 - 7 May 1833) was a British marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first settlement in Australia in 1788. His two accounts, "Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay" and "Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson" (this edition) provide an account of the arrival and first four years of the colony. Little more is known of him until he sailed as part of the First Fleet, although he records that he had spent time in the West Indies and his service record shows that he was promoted to Captain-Lieutenant in September 1782 and went on half-pay in May 1786. In October 1788, Robert Ross made a list of marines who wanted to stay in Australia either as soldiers or settlers. Tench headed the list as 'a soldier for one tour more of three years.' Among his achievements in the fledgling colony of New South Wales Tench was the first European to discover the Nepean River. Tench's accounts were influenced by the liberalism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the idea of the noble savage. He thus writes with some sympathy of the Aborigines. His writings include much information about the Aborigines of Sydney, the Gadigal and Cammeraygal (whom he referred to as "Indians"). He was friendly with Bennelong, Barangaroo and several others. He stayed in Sydney until December 1791 when he sailed home on the HMS Gorgon, arriving in Plymouth in July 1792.

Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, (23 February 1633 - 26 May 1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II. On 1 January 1660, Pepys began to keep a diary. He recorded his daily life for almost ten years. The women he pursued, his friends and his dealings are all laid out. His diary reveals his jealousies, insecurities, trivial concerns, and his fractious relationship with his wife. It is an important account of London in the 1660s. The juxtaposition of his commentary on politics and national events, alongside the very personal, can be seen from the beginning.

The History of the Peloponnesian War is an account of the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece, fought between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and the Delian League (led by Athens). It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian general who served in the war. It is widely considered a classic and regarded as one of the earliest scholarly works of history. Thucydides (circa 460 - 395 BC) was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history," because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work. His text is still studied at advanced military colleges worldwide, and the Melian dialogue remains a seminal work of international relations theory.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 - May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination." He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. This edition, edited by Maurice Baring, is a collection of his notes concerning a wide variety of subjects such as Life, Art and the Sciences. Maurice Baring (27 April 1874 - 14 December 1945) was an English man of letters, known as a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist, and also as a travel writer and war correspondent.

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 - 21 April 1918), also widely known as the Red Baron, was a German fighter pilot with the Imperial German Army Air Service during World War I. He is considered the top ace of that war, being officially credited with 80 air combat victories, more than any other pilot. During his convalescent leave, Richthofen completed his autobiography, "Der rote Kampfflieger." This was written on the instructions of the propaganda section of the Luftstreitkrafte. An English translation by J. Ellis Barker (this edition) was published in 1918 as "The Red Battle Flyer."

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies is an account written by the Spanish Dominican friar Bartolome de las Casas in 1542 (published in 1552) about the mistreatment of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in colonial times and sent to then Prince Philip II of Spain. Bartolome de las Casas (circa 1484 - 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians." His extensive writings, the most famous being "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" and "Historia de Las Indias," chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West Indies and focus particularly on the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples.

In 1909, American agronomist F.H. King toured China, Korea and Japan, studying traditional fertilization, tillage and general farming practices. He wrote his observations and findings in Farmers of Forty Centuries, Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan (1911, published shortly after his death by his wife, Carrie Baker King). King lived in an era preceding synthetic nitrogen fertilizer production and before the use of the internal combustion engine for farm machinery, yet he was profoundly interested in the challenge of farming the same soils in a 'permanent' manner, hence his interest in the agricultural practices of ancient cultures.

Legends of the Gods originally published in 1912 by Egyptologist Alfred Wallis Budge. It also includes the Book of the Heavenly Cow, or The Legend of the destruction of mankind, an Ancient Egyptian text thought to have originated during the Amarna Period and, in part, describes the reasons for the imperfect state of the world in terms of humankind's rebellion against the supreme sun god Ra. Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 1857 - 23 November 1934) was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East.

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte, KB (29 September 1758 - 21 October 1805) was a flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of decisive naval victories. He was wounded several times in combat, losing one arm and the sight in one eye. Of his several victories, the best known and most notable was the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, during which he was shot and killed. Emma, Lady Hamilton (26 April 1765 - 15 January 1815) is best remembered as the mistress of Lord Nelson and as the muse of George Romney. She was born Amy Lyon in Ness near Neston, Cheshire, England, the daughter of a blacksmith, Henry Lyon, who died when she was two months old. She was brought up by her mother, formerly Mary Kidd, at Hawarden, with no formal education. She later changed her name to Emma Hart.

The "Historia Regum Britanniae" (English: The History of the Kings of Britain) is a pseudo-historical account of British history, written circa 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control of much of Britain around the 7th century. Geoffrey's account can be seen to be wildly inaccurate - but it remains a valuable piece of medieval literature, which contains the earliest known version of the story of King Lear and his three daughters, and introduced non-Welsh-speakers to the legend of King Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth (circa 1100 - 1155) was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), which was widely popular in its day and was credited, well into the 16th century, being translated into various other languages from its original Latin.

The Metamorphoses of Ovid are a compendium of the Mythological narratives of ancient Greece and Rome, which embrace a large amount of information upon almost every subject connected with the learning, traditions, manners, and customs of antiquity. In this translation, the text of the Delphin edition has been used. For better understanding of the different narratives and allusions, explanations have been added, which are principally derived from the writings of Herodotus, Apollodorus, Pausanias, Dio Cassius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Strabo, Hyginus, Nonnus, and others of the historians, philosophers, and mythologists of antiquity. P. Ovidius Naso-commonly known as Ovid-was born at Sulmo, about, ninety miles from Rome, in the year 43 B.C. This edition contains Books I-III.

The Elder Eddas (also known as the Poetic Edda) is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century onwards has had a powerful influence on later Scandinavian literatures, not merely through the stories it contains but through the visionary force and dramatic quality of many of the poems. The Codex Regius was written in the 13th century but lost until 1643 when it came into the possession of Brynjolfur Sveinsson. Brynjolfur attributed the manuscript to Saemundr the Learned, a 12th century Icelandic priest. While this attribution is rejected by modern scholars, the name Saemundar Edda is still sometimes encountered. Like most early poetry the Eddic poems were minstrel poems, passing orally from singer to singer and from poet to poet for centuries. None of the poems are attributed to a particular author though many of them show strong individual characteristics and are likely to have been the work of individual poet

Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, or John of Plano Carpini or John of Pian de Carpine or Joannes de Plano (1182 - August 1, 1252) was one of the first Europeans to enter the court of the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. He is the author of the earliest important Western account of northern and central Asia, Rus, and other regions of the Mongol dominion. He was the Serbian Primate and Archbishop of Antivari from 1247 to 1252. "The voyage of Iohannes de Plano Carpini" is the report, compiled by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, of his trip to the Mongol Empire and presented to Pope Innocent IV, and later translated by Richard Hakluyt from the original Latin. Written in the 1240s, it is the oldest European account of the Mongols. Carpine was the first European to try to chronicle Mongol history. The report gives a narrative of his journey, what he had learned about Mongol history, as well as Mongol customs of the time. Many scholars have speculated that Carpine was undoubtedly on a spy mission because the largest portion of the report consists of detailed descriptions of how well prepared the Mongols were for war and suggestions of how the various military leaders might resist them.

A collection of Letters and Documents relating to the shipment of Tea to the American Colonies in the year 1773, by the East India Tea Company. (With an introduction, notes, and biographical notices of the Boston Tea Party).

"An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," generally referred to by its shortened title "The Wealth of Nations," is the work of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in 1776, the books offers one of the worlds first collected descriptions of what builds nations wealth and are today a fundamental work in classical economics. Through reflection over the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the book touches upon broad topics as Division of labour, productivity and free markets. Adam Smith (5 June 1723 - 17 July 1790) was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries, Illustrated by the History of Astronomy, prior to 1758, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759. Smith is cited as the father of modern economics and capitalism and is still among the most influential thinkers in the field of economics today.

"Mare Liberum" is a book (originally written in Latin) on international law written by the Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius. In Mare Liberum, Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The disputation was directed towards the Portuguese Mare Clausum policy and their claim of monopoly on the East Indian Trade. Grotius wrote the treatise while counsel to the Dutch East India Company over the seizure of the Portuguese carrack "Santa Catarina." Hugo Grotius (10 April 1583 - 28 August 1645), was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. He was also a philosopher, theologian, Christian apologist, playwright, and poet.