Many great artists have had at least intermittent doubts about their own abilities. But The Education of Henry Adams is surely one of the few masterpieces to issue directly from a raging inferiority complex. The author, to be sure, had bigger shoes to fill than most of us. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather were U.S. presidents. His father, a relative underachiever, scraped by as a member of Congress and ambassador to the Court of St. James....

Posthumously published in 1864, The Maine Woods depicts Henry David Thoreau's experiences in the forests of Maine, and expands on the author's transcendental theories on the relation of humanity to Nature. On Mount Katahdin, he faces a primal, untamed Nature. Katahdin is a place "not even scarred by man, but it was a specimen of what God saw fit to make this world." In Maine he comes in contact with "rocks, trees, wind and solid earth" as though he...

In 1914, with the well-wishes of the Brazilian government, Theodore Roosevelt, ex-president of the United States; his son, Kermit; and Colonel Rondon travel to South America on a quest to course the River of Doubt. While in Brazil, Theodore is also tasked with a "zoogeographic reconnaissance" of the local wilderness for the archives of the Natural History Museum of New York. In addition to the perils of the incredibly difficult and dangerous terrain,...

Out of the East came wonderful tales by a Westerner who loved the old Japan-devotion, ancestor worship, courtesy, and kindness-and record his feelings for the rest of the world to read. This collection of "reveries and studies," as author and legendary Japanologist Lafcadio Hearn subtitled Out of the East, contains unforgettable tales like "The Red Bridal," in which the conflict between duty and human feelings leads to tragedy in classically Japanese...

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Life of Charlotte Bronte, by Elizabeth Gaskell, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

When George Washington ventured into northwestern Pennsylvania in 1753 to confront the French, he discovered an untouched land of extensive, rich meadows - Pennsylvania's last frontier. Thirty-five years later, the first group of settlers moved into the territory, where they encountered western tribes of Native Americans and vicious battles over land claims. As the wake of the Industrial Revolution swept away any vestiges of the frontier, Crawford...