Write a few words about your favorite Public Domain book!

Kasper Hviid · 06-13-2014, 11:10 AM

Sometimes, Public Domain recommendations ends up looking like an uninviting list of all classic books in existence. So I thought it would be nice with a thread where sequences of words are used to descripe why a certain Public Domain book is worth reading. Here's mine own recommendations:

There is loads of cooking books about ethnic food, that is, food from other part of the world than your own. But I has alway thought it a rather new phenomena. So I was quite surprised when I discovered 365 FOREIGN DISHES, a collection of ethnic recipes published in 1911, which gives the brave reader a new recipe for each day of the year. So if you're in for a helping of German Stewed Brains, this is the book for you!
Download 365 Foreign Dishes: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10011

THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK (1874) is a nonsense-poetry by Lewis Caroll. The tale is funny, but with a rather groteque undertone, which fits nicely with the hyperdetailed, caricatured illustrations. The story centers loosely about the hunt for a legendary and mysterious creature called the Snark. So, I guess its theme is a bit like Moby Dick, only a bit more insane.
Download The Hunting of the Snark: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29888

PETER AND WENDY (1911), the novel behind Disneys classic Peter Pan movie, is a piece of litterature that I somehow never gets to finish. But it is a great read. Like Douglas Addams novels, the thing is stuffed with fantastic ideas. Even before the kids enters Neverland, there are lots of magic realism. The kids has a dog as babysitter, and finding a leftover shadow belonging to one of the childrens imaginary friends is considered a practical problem that doesn't warrent further thought.
Considering that this is a childrens book, it has some interesting content. There is a great deal of death and nudity, and it is even mentioned that the faries are doing orgies. We don't get any details, but still. And when Hook murders one of his men, the author has made it clear that he has made that murder happen for the readers sake.
I think what determines if one like this book is wether one think its victorian writing style is cool or irritating. I like it a lot!
Quotes:
"You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was quite the ordinary kind."
"He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course, nobody really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he ofthen said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made an woman respect him."
"To die will be an awfully big adventure."
'Tinker Bell,' he called softly, after making sure that the children were asleep, 'Tink, where are you?' She was in a jug for the moment, and liking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before.
Download Peter and Wendy: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3413/p...eter-and-wendy

KOKHEYA SHEKAWAT HOSSEIN was a prominent feminist, who in 1911 established a school for Muslim girls that exists to this day. She had early learned English by his older brother. This was done in secret, her family was against it. At age 16, she married a widower in his 30s. Like her brother, he was a supporter of women's education, so he gave her further education in English. In the year 1905 she wrote SULTANA'S DREAM, one of the first examples of feminist science fiction. It was printed in the Indian Ladies' Magazine.
(SPOILER WARNING! - SOME CONTENT OF THE STORY REVEALED BELOW)
At the beginning of the story, the narrator is in the twilight between dreaming and awake. From here, she moves on a dream trip into a utopian future world called Ladyland. You work two hours a day, the kitchens are clean and bright and powered by solar energy, water is collected from the clouds, the earth is cultivated by electric motors and transported by air. Religion is based on Love and Truthfulness and the streets are covered with moss and beautiful flowers. This bliss is made possible by that society's problematic elements - the men - are under strict control. Utopia has has a bit of dystopia about it and the pompous Victorian language gives the story a grotesque glow.
The danish crime novel MØGKÆLLINGER also ponders about the benefits of locking men up, but here, the author distances herself from the books imprisonment and castration terrorism by letting it be the work of the books insane villain, thus implying that such behavior is not very nice. SULTANA'S DREAM, on the other hand, goes all the way, and descripes how the perfect society can be archived, not by equality between men and women, but by women having the power to suppress the male population. The short story is influenced by that era optimistic belief that technological advances could create a new and better world. This is in stark contrast to Mother Lines from 1978, when the technology is seen as a threat.
Download Sultana's Dream: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6719/sultana-s-dream

gmw · 06-14-2014, 09:40 AM

You mention Peter and Wendy, by J.M. Barrie. One of my favourite quotes from that story is the description of carefree children like Peter Pan as: "gay and innocent and heartless".

But from J.M. Barrie I prefer The Little White Bird (1902). The middle section (later published separately as "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens") is not so much to my taste, but early and final chapters offer a fascinating and poignant character study of the narrator.

ccowie · 06-14-2014, 12:27 PM

My favourite in the public domain is Moonfleet by Meade Falkner. I read it first when I was about 12, then again when I was in my 20s to see if it was a good as I'd remembered. It was. So, I read an ebook version a few years ago and I still love it.

It's got mystery, adventure, a little romance and even treasure. And someone named Elzevir. What a great name!

issybird · 06-14-2014, 12:51 PM

Mostly people are familiar with Elizabeth von Arnim as the author of Elizabeth and her German Garden and The Enchanted April. Both books are too twee for my tastes, but she wrote one black comic gem in my estimation. Vera is a psychological story of a marriage, akin to du Maurier's Rebecca but first and better and much darker.

Kasper Hviid · 06-18-2014, 05:27 PM

HERBERT WEST – REANIMATOR is a 6 part serial that appeared in Home Brew Magazine in 1922. The author behind it hated it - he had been paid in advance to write it, and thus, the story was contaminated. In respect of this, the story was ommited when August Derletch replublished H. P. Lovecrafts collected works after his death. Stuart Gordon rediscovered this gem after a longer search, and directed the now classic splatter flick REANIMATOR (1985). Compared to the authors more subtle and restrained Cthulhu tales, this mad doctor story has a lot more action, and also quite a bit of grotesque humor. The story itself is weak, but a nice ride nonetheless!

Dazrin · 06-18-2014, 06:03 PM

Kasper, thanks for that, sounds interesting.

Here are a couple links to these in the MR Library where they weren't posted earlier:
Herbert West - Reanimator: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=199562
Moonfleet: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44731
Vera: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31828
The Little White Bird: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27862

mgbino · 06-18-2014, 06:16 PM

Captain Blood Pirates, swashbuckling, awesomeness.

jersysman · 06-21-2014, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by issybird

Mostly people are familiar with Elizabeth von Arnim as the author of Elizabeth and her German Garden and The Enchanted April. Both books are too twee for my tastes, but she wrote one black comic gem in my estimation. Vera is a psychological story of a marriage, akin to du Maurier's Rebecca but first and better and much darker.

Issybird, I'm going to give Vera a try since I really liked Rebecca.

NickyWithNook · 06-22-2014, 04:18 PM

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. They're clever and the characters feel very real.

Walden. I've always found this very inspiring.

Les Miserables and A Tale of Two Cities. I love books set during this general period of time - the French Revolution and the time following it (Les Mis is set about 15 or so years later.) I found myself very drawn into both of these novels and had a hard time putting them down.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I talked about how much I liked A Tale of Two Cities here, and someone said if I like Dickens, I'd like Gaskell, and that was certainly true. It isn't just a love story - it has this whole theme of labor and the plight of working people in it that I found fascinating.

The Wind In the Willows. This is probably my favorite children's book, and then I read it aloud to one of my kids and I loved it even more after I read it aloud. I think it's a book that sounds wonderful spoken.

I have picked up this book mentioned above - Vera. Rebecca is a favorite of mine.

Kasper Hviid · 06-25-2014, 02:23 PM

gutenberg.ca - The Canadian version of Project Gutenberg gives each new release a short, enthusiastic introduction. Scrool down a few pages to see their "New releases" section.

gutenberg.ca has the everything-on-a-single-page approach, which is practical if you can convert it to epub or a ereader-friendly format. Only downside is that only some of their books are in epub format.

Kasper Hviid · 06-27-2014, 06:53 AM

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER (1892) horror short story. A woman suffering from nerveous depression has been confined to her bedroom - a cure prescriped by her husband. There, she developes a strange fixation on her bedroom wallpaper. Sure, there's feminist themes and all that, but what I really love is the basic idea of creating a horror story about a person staring at wallpaper. Genius!

This short story really shows the strength of litterature - it is hard to imagine a story like that in any other medium. Nevertheless, it was addapted into a movie in 1989 and 2011.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=231702

WillAdams · 06-27-2014, 08:10 AM

H. Beam Piper's _Little Fuzzy_ --- an examination of what it means to be sentient. Available in: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47980

(my suggestion, skip the first story if it doesn't interest you).

Kasper Hviid · 07-31-2014, 02:01 AM

HER DARK INHERITANCE ... I love that title! I started reading it solely because that title promised so much. Despite being published back in 1892, the novel is quite fast-paced - I had barely started reading before I reached the first couple of deaths, a rescue, a love triangle, an evil step mother and the obligatory mystery promised in the title.

Story: After the death of her beloved stepfather, sixteen year Beatrix Dane has to travel to New Orleans to live with the mysterious person who for some reason had chosen to finance her upbringing.

The heroine is beautiful and good, of course. And the villians are ugly and ever so evil. But despite the solidly drawn archetypes, it is worth noticing how everyone - good or bad - are blatantly in love with the idea of getting lots an' lots of money.

I really liked this book, but sure, it belongs to another time. Slavery was prohibited at the time of writing, but the book nevertheless has a whiff of it. This threw me out of the story and into analysing mode. Despite this, it is an entertaining ride with lots of melodrama and swooning.

Fave quote:
"No, I am not insane; there is no insanity in the Dane family. I am not idiotic; I am as sane and sound as you are, and more than you will be when you learn the truth concerning yourself. Don't shrink away and cower out of sight like that. Be a woman. Do you know what that means? It means to bear the burden of another's sin; to carry its consequences about in your heart—your tender, guiltless, woman's heart—until your life is darkened and ruined forever."

And notice the nice front page layout: coverlarge.jpg

DOWNLOAD BOOK: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46363

HomeInMyShoes · 08-01-2014, 01:00 PM

My favourites from public domain is pretty dull and predictable, but:

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells: just a superb story and you can read it seriously or in a campy sort of way and I think it works both ways. If anyone hasn't read this they should.

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. A great science fiction story.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Probably my favourite of all time. Read it as both an actual change in the person or read it as how a person may think that their job is changing them. I love Kafka for the many levels you can read his stories on. Just a brilliant writer.

The Trial by Franz Kafka. Same as above. If you haven't read Kafka, you should. A little darker and more sinister than The Metamorphosis.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London. I just really liked this book.

And I also might give Vera a try when I get through some other books.

06-13-2014, 11:10 AM	#1
Kasper Hviid Zealot Posts: 141 Karma: 2784614 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: none	Write a few words about your favorite Public Domain book! Sometimes, Public Domain recommendations ends up looking like an uninviting list of all classic books in existence. So I thought it would be nice with a thread where sequences of words are used to descripe why a certain Public Domain book is worth reading. Here's mine own recommendations: There is loads of cooking books about ethnic food, that is, food from other part of the world than your own. But I has alway thought it a rather new phenomena. So I was quite surprised when I discovered 365 FOREIGN DISHES, a collection of ethnic recipes published in 1911, which gives the brave reader a new recipe for each day of the year. So if you're in for a helping of German Stewed Brains, this is the book for you! Download 365 Foreign Dishes: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10011 THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK (1874) is a nonsense-poetry by Lewis Caroll. The tale is funny, but with a rather groteque undertone, which fits nicely with the hyperdetailed, caricatured illustrations. The story centers loosely about the hunt for a legendary and mysterious creature called the Snark. So, I guess its theme is a bit like Moby Dick, only a bit more insane. Download The Hunting of the Snark: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29888 PETER AND WENDY (1911), the novel behind Disneys classic Peter Pan movie, is a piece of litterature that I somehow never gets to finish. But it is a great read. Like Douglas Addams novels, the thing is stuffed with fantastic ideas. Even before the kids enters Neverland, there are lots of magic realism. The kids has a dog as babysitter, and finding a leftover shadow belonging to one of the childrens imaginary friends is considered a practical problem that doesn't warrent further thought. Considering that this is a childrens book, it has some interesting content. There is a great deal of death and nudity, and it is even mentioned that the faries are doing orgies. We don't get any details, but still. And when Hook murders one of his men, the author has made it clear that he has made that murder happen for the readers sake. I think what determines if one like this book is wether one think its victorian writing style is cool or irritating. I like it a lot! Quotes: "You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was quite the ordinary kind." "He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course, nobody really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he ofthen said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made an woman respect him." "To die will be an awfully big adventure." 'Tinker Bell,' he called softly, after making sure that the children were asleep, 'Tink, where are you?' She was in a jug for the moment, and liking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before. Download Peter and Wendy: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3413/p...eter-and-wendy KOKHEYA SHEKAWAT HOSSEIN was a prominent feminist, who in 1911 established a school for Muslim girls that exists to this day. She had early learned English by his older brother. This was done in secret, her family was against it. At age 16, she married a widower in his 30s. Like her brother, he was a supporter of women's education, so he gave her further education in English. In the year 1905 she wrote SULTANA'S DREAM, one of the first examples of feminist science fiction. It was printed in the Indian Ladies' Magazine. (SPOILER WARNING! - SOME CONTENT OF THE STORY REVEALED BELOW) At the beginning of the story, the narrator is in the twilight between dreaming and awake. From here, she moves on a dream trip into a utopian future world called Ladyland. You work two hours a day, the kitchens are clean and bright and powered by solar energy, water is collected from the clouds, the earth is cultivated by electric motors and transported by air. Religion is based on Love and Truthfulness and the streets are covered with moss and beautiful flowers. This bliss is made possible by that society's problematic elements - the men - are under strict control. Utopia has has a bit of dystopia about it and the pompous Victorian language gives the story a grotesque glow. The danish crime novel MØGKÆLLINGER also ponders about the benefits of locking men up, but here, the author distances herself from the books imprisonment and castration terrorism by letting it be the work of the books insane villain, thus implying that such behavior is not very nice. SULTANA'S DREAM, on the other hand, goes all the way, and descripes how the perfect society can be archived, not by equality between men and women, but by women having the power to suppress the male population. The short story is influenced by that era optimistic belief that technological advances could create a new and better world. This is in stark contrast to Mother Lines from 1978, when the technology is seen as a threat. Download Sultana's Dream: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6719/sultana-s-dream

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06-14-2014, 09:40 AM	#2
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,809 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	You mention Peter and Wendy, by J.M. Barrie. One of my favourite quotes from that story is the description of carefree children like Peter Pan as: "gay and innocent and heartless". But from J.M. Barrie I prefer The Little White Bird (1902). The middle section (later published separately as "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens") is not so much to my taste, but early and final chapters offer a fascinating and poignant character study of the narrator.

06-14-2014, 12:27 PM	#3
ccowie Hiding with an ereader Posts: 391 Karma: 3987376 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Kitchener Ontario Device: Kindle Paperwhite, Sony PRS 950, Ipad 2, PRS 350	My favourite in the public domain is Moonfleet by Meade Falkner. I read it first when I was about 12, then again when I was in my 20s to see if it was a good as I'd remembered. It was. So, I read an ebook version a few years ago and I still love it. It's got mystery, adventure, a little romance and even treasure. And someone named Elzevir. What a great name!

06-14-2014, 12:51 PM	#4
issybird o saeclum infacetum Posts: 20,229 Karma: 222235366 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: New England Device: H2O, Aura One, PW5	Mostly people are familiar with Elizabeth von Arnim as the author of Elizabeth and her German Garden and The Enchanted April. Both books are too twee for my tastes, but she wrote one black comic gem in my estimation. Vera is a psychological story of a marriage, akin to du Maurier's Rebecca but first and better and much darker.

06-18-2014, 05:27 PM	#5
Kasper Hviid Zealot Posts: 141 Karma: 2784614 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: none	HERBERT WEST – REANIMATOR is a 6 part serial that appeared in Home Brew Magazine in 1922. The author behind it hated it - he had been paid in advance to write it, and thus, the story was contaminated. In respect of this, the story was ommited when August Derletch replublished H. P. Lovecrafts collected works after his death. Stuart Gordon rediscovered this gem after a longer search, and directed the now classic splatter flick REANIMATOR (1985). Compared to the authors more subtle and restrained Cthulhu tales, this mad doctor story has a lot more action, and also quite a bit of grotesque humor. The story itself is weak, but a nice ride nonetheless!

06-18-2014, 06:03 PM	#6
Dazrin Wizard Posts: 2,631 Karma: 73864785 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: PDXish Device: Kindle Voyage, various Android devices	Kasper, thanks for that, sounds interesting. Here are a couple links to these in the MR Library where they weren't posted earlier: Herbert West - Reanimator: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=199562 Moonfleet: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44731 Vera: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31828 The Little White Bird: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27862

06-18-2014, 06:16 PM	#7
mgbino Groupie Posts: 199 Karma: 3039394 Join Date: Mar 2014 Device: Nook Glowlight	Captain Blood Pirates, swashbuckling, awesomeness.

06-22-2014, 04:18 PM	#9
NickyWithNook Guru Posts: 748 Karma: 3942770 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Michigan, USA Device: Kindle Fire, Kindle Paperwhite (Don't use Nook anymore)	Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. They're clever and the characters feel very real. Walden. I've always found this very inspiring. Les Miserables and A Tale of Two Cities. I love books set during this general period of time - the French Revolution and the time following it (Les Mis is set about 15 or so years later.) I found myself very drawn into both of these novels and had a hard time putting them down. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I talked about how much I liked A Tale of Two Cities here, and someone said if I like Dickens, I'd like Gaskell, and that was certainly true. It isn't just a love story - it has this whole theme of labor and the plight of working people in it that I found fascinating. The Wind In the Willows. This is probably my favorite children's book, and then I read it aloud to one of my kids and I loved it even more after I read it aloud. I think it's a book that sounds wonderful spoken. I have picked up this book mentioned above - Vera. Rebecca is a favorite of mine.

06-25-2014, 02:23 PM	#10
Kasper Hviid Zealot Posts: 141 Karma: 2784614 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: none	gutenberg.ca - The Canadian version of Project Gutenberg gives each new release a short, enthusiastic introduction. Scrool down a few pages to see their "New releases" section. gutenberg.ca has the everything-on-a-single-page approach, which is practical if you can convert it to epub or a ereader-friendly format. Only downside is that only some of their books are in epub format.

06-27-2014, 06:53 AM	#11
Kasper Hviid Zealot Posts: 141 Karma: 2784614 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: none	THE YELLOW WALLPAPER (1892) horror short story. A woman suffering from nerveous depression has been confined to her bedroom - a cure prescriped by her husband. There, she developes a strange fixation on her bedroom wallpaper. Sure, there's feminist themes and all that, but what I really love is the basic idea of creating a horror story about a person staring at wallpaper. Genius! This short story really shows the strength of litterature - it is hard to imagine a story like that in any other medium. Nevertheless, it was addapted into a movie in 1989 and 2011. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=231702

06-27-2014, 08:10 AM	#12
WillAdams Wizard Posts: 1,234 Karma: 3350652 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (300ppi), Samsung Galaxy Book 12	H. Beam Piper's _Little Fuzzy_ --- an examination of what it means to be sentient. Available in: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47980 (my suggestion, skip the first story if it doesn't interest you).

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07-31-2014, 02:01 AM	#13
Kasper Hviid Zealot Posts: 141 Karma: 2784614 Join Date: Nov 2012 Device: none	HER DARK INHERITANCE ... I love that title! I started reading it solely because that title promised so much. Despite being published back in 1892, the novel is quite fast-paced - I had barely started reading before I reached the first couple of deaths, a rescue, a love triangle, an evil step mother and the obligatory mystery promised in the title. Story: After the death of her beloved stepfather, sixteen year Beatrix Dane has to travel to New Orleans to live with the mysterious person who for some reason had chosen to finance her upbringing. The heroine is beautiful and good, of course. And the villians are ugly and ever so evil. But despite the solidly drawn archetypes, it is worth noticing how everyone - good or bad - are blatantly in love with the idea of getting lots an' lots of money. I really liked this book, but sure, it belongs to another time. Slavery was prohibited at the time of writing, but the book nevertheless has a whiff of it. This threw me out of the story and into analysing mode. Despite this, it is an entertaining ride with lots of melodrama and swooning. Fave quote: "No, I am not insane; there is no insanity in the Dane family. I am not idiotic; I am as sane and sound as you are, and more than you will be when you learn the truth concerning yourself. Don't shrink away and cower out of sight like that. Be a woman. Do you know what that means? It means to bear the burden of another's sin; to carry its consequences about in your heart—your tender, guiltless, woman's heart—until your life is darkened and ruined forever." And notice the nice front page layout: coverlarge.jpg DOWNLOAD BOOK: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46363

08-01-2014, 01:00 PM	#14
HomeInMyShoes Grand Sorcerer Posts: 19,226 Karma: 67780237 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: none	My favourites from public domain is pretty dull and predictable, but: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells: just a superb story and you can read it seriously or in a campy sort of way and I think it works both ways. If anyone hasn't read this they should. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. A great science fiction story. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Probably my favourite of all time. Read it as both an actual change in the person or read it as how a person may think that their job is changing them. I love Kafka for the many levels you can read his stories on. Just a brilliant writer. The Trial by Franz Kafka. Same as above. If you haven't read Kafka, you should. A little darker and more sinister than The Metamorphosis. The Call of the Wild by Jack London. I just really liked this book. And I also might give Vera a try when I get through some other books.