Essays Books

A Plea for Captain John Brown

Henry David Thoreau

A Plea for Captain John Brown is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. It is based on a speech Thoreau first delivered to an audience at Concord, Massachusetts on October 30, 1859, two weeks after John Bro..

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Henry David Thoreau

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is a book by Henry David Thoreau. It is ostensibly the narrative of a boat trip from Concord, Massachusetts to Concord, New Hampshire, and back, that Thoreau..

Walking

Henry David Thoreau

Walking is Thoreau's essay that champions the simple act of taking stroll through Nature. It has become one of the most important essays in the environmental movement, and is a portable guide to the m..

The Banquet

Dante Alighieri

Between 1304 and 1307 Dante wrote Convivio, or "The Banquet," a philosophical essay which is part poetry and part prose. It is in four parts, or treatises, and is unfinished. It is the record of Dante..

An Essay on Projects

Daniel Defoe

An Essay Upon Projects was the first volume published by Daniel Defoe. It begins with a portrait of his time as a "Projecting Age" and subsequently illustrates plans for the economic and social improv..

Cicero's Orations

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC), aka, "Tully,” was a famed Roman statesman, lawyer, humanist, and one of the greatest orators of all time. If Julius Caesar calls to mind Roman military power, t..

The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4

Marcus Tullius Cicero

When Julius, or, as he is usually called by Cicero Caius Caesar was slain on the 15th of March, A.U.C. 710, B.C. 44 Marcus Antonius was his colleague in the consulship, and he, being afraid that the c..

De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The De Amicitia, inscribed, like the De Senectute, to Atticus, was probably written early in the year 44 B.C., during Cicero's retirement, after the death of Julius Caesar and before the conflict with..