Audiobooks online: genre "Essays & Short Works", page 16

“These papers were originally published as prefaces to the separate books of Dickens in one of the most extensive of those cheap libraries of the classics which are one of the real improvements of recent times. Thus they were harmless, being diluted by, or rather drowned in Di...

With her usual wit and charm, Ms. Repplier recalls her days at Eden Hall, the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Torresdale, north of Philadelphia. She shares the highlights (and some of the low lights) of her time there. Perhaps this sharp eye, nurtured by her willfulness and indepe...

"We would no more choose to feed the minds of our countrymen and women with the despairing utterances of the pessimist poet, than we would their bodies with hasheesh. Such melancholy as his clothed in such eloquent words may be the luxury of the idle; it is poison to those who ha...

The Uncommercial Traveller is a collection of literary sketches and reminiscences written by Charles Dickens. In 1859 Dickens founded a new journal called All the Year Round and the Uncommercial Traveller articles would be among his main contributions. He seems to have chosen the...

An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting was a conduct book written by Jane Collier and published in 1753. The Essay was Collier's first work, and operates as a satirical advice book on how to nag. It was modelled after Jonathan Swift's satirical essays, and is intended to "...

“When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a jolly thing! He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the chance of things. He pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly pulling round, he sees the wind getting into the mainsail, and he fee...

This is a collection of 32 highly diverting essays of English author Richard Middleton. Although Middleton is now best remembered for his ghost stories, he was also an accomplished poet and essayist. The musings collected in this volume cover a variety of topics, including poetry...

A collection of short nonfiction works in the public domain. The selections included in this collection were independently chosen by the readers, and the topics encompass history, war, farming, slavery, education, philosophy, and nature. (summary by J. M. Smallheer)...

Born in rural Vermont in 1833, and nearly unknown to today's readers, Rowland Evans Robinson was once one of Vermont's best-known writers. A talented artist, he drew cartoons in New York City for the “funny papers" before returning to Vermont, where he authored nearly a dozen wid...

This is the twenty-fifth Coffee Break Collection, in which Librivox readers select English language public domain works of about 15 minutes or less in duration -- perfect to listen to during commutes, workouts or coffee breaks. The topic for this collection is water, a subject th...

Hillaire Belloc of French by birth, British by naturalization was a diverse and prolific writer of the early 20th century. His writing runs the range from poetry, political writings and children’s stories. He was a close friend, and sometimes collaborator with fellow Catholic G...

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is a 1624 prose work by the English theologian and writer John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It is a series of reflections that were written as Donne recovered from a serious illness. The work consists of twenty-three parts ('dev...