Essays, Letters & Speeches celebrates the forms of writing in which intellect meets personality most directly. Montaigne invented the essay; Francis Bacon refined it for English; Charles Lamb gave it lyric warmth; and Ralph Waldo Emerson charged it with prophetic energy — all of their work is available here as free, cleanly-formatted EPUB downloads alongside the correspondence and oratory of statesmen, scientists, and men of letters.
The shelf includes the great letter collections — Horace Walpole, Lord Chesterfield, Charles Darwin — and the landmark speeches of Abraham Lincoln, Edmund Burke, and Daniel Webster. Together these texts show how public argument and private reflection have sustained intellectual culture across centuries, making this one of the most pleasurable shelves on the entire site for readers who love language at its most personal.
- The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert ImlayMary Wollstonecraft
- The Expedition of Humphry ClinkerTobias Smollett
- De ProfundisOscar Wilde
- Love and Freindship [sic]Jane Austen
- The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn; With NotesKing of England Henry VIII
- Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812 / For the First Time Collected and Translated, with Notes Social, Historical, and Chronological, from Contemporary SourcesEmperor of the French Napoleon I
- Biographia LiterariaSamuel Taylor Coleridge
- Anarchism and Other EssaysEmma Goldman
- More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1 / A Record of His Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished LettersCharles Darwin
- Selected Works of Voltairine de CleyreVoltairine De Cleyre
- Plutarch's MoralsPlutarch
- Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil DisobedienceHenry David Thoreau
- A Modest ProposalJonathan Swift
- The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Completeda Vinci Leonardo
- The Crown of Wild Olive / also Munera Pulveris; Pre-Raphaelitism; Aratra Pentelici; The Ethics of the Dust; Fiction, Fair and Foul; The Elements of DrawingJohn Ruskin
- The Romance of Biography (Vol 1 of 2) / or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols.Mrs. Jameson
- The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition / Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five VolumesEdgar Allan Poe
- Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the AncientsFrancis Bacon
- The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Complete Prose Works / Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My FancyWalt Whitman
- In Praise of Folly / Illustrated with Many Curious CutsDesiderius Erasmus
- Pascal's PenséesBlaise Pascal
- The Book-Hunter / A New Edition, with a Memoir of the AuthorJohn Hill Burton
- The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, 1837-1843Queen of Great Britain Victoria
- Darkwater: Voices from Within the VeilW. E. B. Du Bois
- Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1Isaac Disraeli
- Letters of Asa Gray; Vol. 2Asa Gray
- The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1 / Poetry – Volume 1Alexander Pope
- The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and PoliticalFranklin K. Lane
- Das Bücher-Dekameron / Eine Zehn-Nächte-Tour durch die europäische Gesellschaft und LiteraturKasimir Edschmid
- The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular PhilosophyWilliam James
- The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 2, 1844-1853Queen of Great Britain Victoria
- Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 153, vol. III, December 4, 1886Various
- Children's Literature / A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training ClassesCharles Madison Curry
- The Souls of Black FolkW. E. B. Du Bois
- Studies in Literature and HistorySir Alfred C. Lyall
- Characteristics of Women: Moral, Poetical, and HistoricalMrs. Jameson
- The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 3, 1854-1861Queen of Great Britain Victoria
- Essays by Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson
- Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection / A Series of EssaysAlfred Russel Wallace
- On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) / A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and LiteratureJohn Ruskin
- Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 3 / Essays on Literature, Biography, and AntiquitiesF. Max Müller
- Homer's Odyssey / A CommentaryDenton Jaques Snider
- The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 1, 1833-1856Charles Dickens
- A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume IAugustus De Morgan
- Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of AnimalsMrs. R. Lee
- Lincoln's Birthday
- As a man thinkethJames Allen
- SibyllaC. A. Mace
- Common SenseThomas Paine
- Figures of Several CenturiesArthur Symons
- Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysBertrand Russell
- Critical and Historical Essays / Lectures delivered at Columbia UniversityEdward MacDowell
- When Winter Comes to Main StreetGrant M. Overton
- The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 / The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological OrderMarcus Tullius Cicero
- Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A SelectionWalter Savage Landor
- Thomas Davis, selections from his prose and poetryThomas Davis
- The Communist ManifestoKarl Marx
- Wild Animals at HomeErnest Thompson Seton
- More Science from an Easy ChairSir E. Ray Lankester
- The Toilers of the FieldRichard Jefferies
- Happy DaysA. A. Milne
- The Subjection of WomenJohn Stuart Mill
- The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 2, 1857-1870Charles Dickens
- Jewish Literature and Other EssaysGustav Karpeles
- Archæological Essays, Vol. 1James Young Simpson
- MiltonSir Walter Alexander Raleigh
- The Writings of Thomas Jefferson / Library Edition – Vol. 6 (of 20)Thomas Jefferson
- Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3)Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay
- My Contemporaries In FictionDavid Christie Murray
- The Humbugs of the World / An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All AgesP. T. Barnum
- Historical EssaysJames Ford Rhodes
- Progress and History
- Past and Present / Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.Thomas Carlyle
- The Log of the Sun: A Chronicle of Nature's YearWilliam Beebe
- I marginalenOlaf Homén
- Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son / Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy."George Horace Lorimer
- India: What can it teach us? / A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of CambridgeF. Max Müller
- Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's DuelJohn Donne
- NatureRalph Waldo Emerson
- I manifesti del futurismoF. T. Marinetti
- Browning's HeroinesEthel Colburn Mayne
- Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles DickensG. K. Chesterton
- Stray Studies from England and ItalyJohn Richard Greene
- The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 / A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
- PipefulsChristopher Morley
- Les Contemporains, 3ème Série / Études et Portraits LittérairesJules Lemaître
- Modern women and what is said of them : a reprint of a series of articles in the Saturday Review (1868)E. Lynn Linton
- My Studio NeighborsW. Hamilton Gibson
- The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition, Vol. 01Robert Louis Stevenson
- The World I Live InHelen Keller
- A Tramp's NotebookMorley Roberts
- Reflections; or Sentences and Moral MaximsFrançois de La Rochefoucauld
- Nights in LondonThomas Burke
- The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) – Great Britain and Ireland III
- The Poetics of AristotleAristotle
- The Short-story
- Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 / Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent OratorsElbert Hubbard
- The Merry-Go-RoundCarl Van Vechten