Remarkable for their eloquence, depth of feeling, and oratorical mastery, these 82 compelling speeches encompass five centuries of Indian encounters with nonindigenous people. Beginning with a 1540 refusal by a Timucua chief to parley with Hernando de Soto («With such a people I want no peace»), the collection extends to the 20th-century address of activist Russell Means to the United Nations affiliates and members of the Human Rights Commission («We are people who love in the belly of the...
Ironically, the horrors of World War One produced a splendid flowering of British verse as young poets, many of them combatants, confronted their own morality, the death of dear friends, the loss of innocence, the failure of civilization, and the madness of war itself.This volume contains a rich selection of poems from that time by Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, and others known especially for their war poetry — as well as poems by such major poets as...
In his brief but productive lifetime, Stephen Crane (1871–1900) wrote vividly and sensitively about a variety of subjects. In his work he displayed a rare ability to combine astute characterization, colorful settings, and an ironic tone in memorable tales offering perceptive explorations of human psychology and motivation.He is perhaps famous as author of The Red Badge of Courage, the quintessential Civil War classic. However, Crane wrote seven other stories involving this monumental...
Frederick Niven was British Columbia’s first professional man of letters and the first significant literary figure of the Kootenays. He lived by his wits, as an independent writer, mainly on the outskirts of Nelson, from 1920 until 1944. Although some of his more than 40 titles were written to keep the wolf from the door, such as Cinderella of Skookum Creek (1916), by contrast, Niven’s collection of 16 short stories called Above Your Heads (1911) consisted exclusively of stories rejected by...
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) was an American writer who most widely became famous as an activist to improve United States government treatment of Native Americans. In 1879 her interests turned to the Native Americans after hearing a lecture in Boston by Standing Bear, the Ponca Chief. He described the forceful removal of the Ponca from their reservation in Nebraska. Moved by the issues presented by Standing Bear, Hunt learned about the government defaulting on treaties, the removal of Indians...
Thomas Babington Macaulay was a child prodigy who, by the age of 8, had written a history of the world and a poem in three cantos modeled after the poetry of Sir Walter Scott. He studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge, but drew great attention for several literary essays he contributed to the Edinburgh Review. In 1849, he published the first two volumes of «The History of England, From the Accession of James II», which were immediately well-received. As a Whig, with little tolerance for...
"Experience has taught us that it is sometimes wise and necessary to have more than two witnesses to bring out the whole truth. Especially is this the case where one of such witnesses has a powerful motive for suppressing or distorting the facts, as in this case. I therefore insist upon my right to take the witness stand and give my version of this Southern question, and though it shall widely differ from that of both the North and South, I shall submit the same to the candid judgment of...
Thanksgiving is an American tradition, celebrating the coming of autumn, the bounty of the harvest, the peaceful coexistence of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, football, family – and, of course, the obligatory celebration feast. Here are 35 tales celebrating Thanksgiving in all its forms, by classic authors you know and love (O. Henry, Harriet Becher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne) and others who may be new to you.<P> Included are:<P> TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN, by O....