Essays Books

Man in the Iron Mask (an Essay)

Alexandre Dumas

This is the essay entitled The Man in the Iron Mask, not the novel “The Man in the Iron Mask”. For nearly one hundred years this curious problem has exercised the imagination of writers of fiction—and..

The Human Machine

Arnold Bennett

The Human Machine is a book on etiquette written by Arnold Bennett, an English writer. He is best known as a novelist, but he also worked in other fields such as the theatre, journalism, propagan..

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

The Theory of Moral Sentiments is a 1759 book by Adam Smith. It provided the ethical, philosophical, psychological, and methodological underpinnings to Smith's later works, including The Wealth of Nat..

Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus

Francis Pharcellus Church

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus is a phrase from an editorial called Is There a Santa Claus?. The editorial appeared in the September 21, 1897, edition of The (New York) Sun and has since become..

Discourse on the Method of Reasoning

René Descartes

Most philosophers don't get in an immortal tagline like Descartes' "I think therefore I am," but don't go thinking he was all about succinct one-liners, as the title of his most famous work reveals. I..

An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds

John Higginbottom

The following pages are presented to the medical public with very humble pretensions. It is chiefly with the minor accidents or diseases that they have to do; but I shall not consider that I have labo..

The Essays of Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation, wherein he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insat..

A Life of William Shakespeare

Sir Sidney Lee

Shakespeare, William, A Life of, by Sidney Lee (1898). The motto of this book would appear to be that which was said (by one of them) to have animated the contributors to the English Dictionary of Nat..