Classic Biography

There's honest graft and dishonest graft, according to George Washington Plunkitt. Listen to this candid discourse from a 19th-century politician and decide for yourself if things have changed.

Die 1792 fertig gestellten "Erinnerungen" von Giacomo Casanova lassen uns an einem, auch für heutige Verhältnisse unglaublich aufregenden Leben teilhaben. Sie bestechen durch ihre flüssige Sprache und lebendigen Dialoge und sind von hohem kulturhistorischem Wert. Sie erregten jedoch schon immer vor allem wegen der beschriebenen frivolen erotischen Abenteuer Aufsehen und machten Casanova weltweit zum Synonym für die hohe Kunst der Verführung.

Originally published in 1856, The Kidnapped and the Ransomed is the personal memoir of Peter Still, who was born a slave. He was yoked to servitude for more than four decades in Alabama and Kentucky. Still was finally freed with the help of two Jewish brothers.

Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada is an engrossing blend of scientific exploration and personal adventure. Clarence King describes the ascent of Mounts Tyndall, Shasta, and Whitney with a scientific poet’s eye, and makes the grandeur of the cliffs, the peaks, the glaciers, and the meadows of Yosemite Valley come alive through his remarkable gifts of portrayal. King describes nature like a master painter while his portrait of the people of California 20 years after the Gold Rush finds engaging expression in a subtle shift of style.

"La folie et le désespoir ! Qu'on me donne cela comme levier, et je ferai bouger le monde". Verloc, espion infiltrant le milieu anarchiste, se voit sommé de commettre un attentat retentissant, sous peine de se voir retirer ses rétributions. Mais personne dans son entourage, à commencer par sa femme, ne sait rien de ses activités parallèles. Tout se gâte réellement lorsque Stevie, le frère attardé mental de la femme de M. Verloc, s'intéresse aux agissements de son beau-frère.

This volume relates the stories of the Borgias and the Cenci. The former, a family of Spanish adventurers, came to dominate the Italian peninsula, and, when Rodergio Borgia became Pope Alexander VI, the world of Christendom, in the late 15th century. The Cenci was an aristocratic family, in which rampant sexual and domestic abuse led to murder and very public execution.

In 1839, two years after graduating from Harvard, Henry David Thoreau and his older brother, John, took a boat-and-hiking trip from Concord, Massachusetts, to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. After John's sudden death in 1842, Thoreau began to prepare a memorial account of their excursion during his stay at Walden Pond. Modern listeners have come to see Thoreau's story of the river journey as an appropriate predecessor to Walden, depicting the early years of his spiritual and artistic growth.

The Bard was so incredibly prolific that even most Shakespeare scholars would welcome the occasional refresher course, and most of the rest of us haven't even got a clue as to what a petard actually is. Fear not, the best-selling authors of Homework for Grown-Ups are here to help.

In 1902, newly-married Jeannie Gunn (Mrs Aeneas Gunn) left the security and comfort of her Melbourne home to travel to the depths of the Northern Territory, Australia, where her husband had been appointed manager of 'The Elsey', a large cattle station. One of the very few white women in the area, she was at first resented by people on and around the station, till her warmth and spirit won their affection and respect. This is her moving and simple account of her life amidst the beauty and cruelty of the land.

William Shakespeare had nothing to do with the actor and moneylender William Shaksper from Stratford-upon-Avon. The man behind the nom de plume "William Shakespeare" was, in fact, a very well-educated aristocrat who often frequented the court of Elizabeth and whose real name was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. The dramas of Shakespeare were not written for the Globe Theatre but for the Queen's court.

To all appearances, John Wilder has all the trappings of success, circa 1960: a promising career in advertising, a loving family, a beautiful apartment, even a country home. John's evenings are spent with associates at quiet Manhattan lounges and his weekends with friends at glittering cocktail parties. But something deep within this seemingly perfect life has long since gone wrong.

A seemingly normal husband father of two decides to kill young girls after storming an Amish schoolhouse, and sex may have been the prime motivator. A young high school student has a secret desire for murder, and decides a middle of the night visit to his best friend's house will do nicely to satiate his hunger to kill. A seedy individual living in an even seedier part of Philadelphia decides to populate his basement with kidnapped women for sex and the bearing of children, and it is death to those who do not submit.

Welcome to New York, Notorious USA! The Empire State has witnessed many unique and perverse crimes. Quite a few triggered international headlines. This is where the phrase "serial killer" was born - for good reason! From genius killers to violent child molesters, New York has it all. We also find the demented assassinations of Stanford White and John Lennon, the strange case that inspired Edgar Allen Poe, murders that enthralled filmmakers, scandalous crimes that altered journalism, and even a murderous writer.

Home of the Jersey Devil, New Jersey has its share of other devils, from predatory nurses to thrill killers and sadists. Here you'll find a family that preyed on one of their own, a mass murderer with a list of grudges, an adulterous minister killed with his mistress, and a wife who cut up her husband. This state is rich in crime, with a significant number of high-profile cases, like the Lindbergh and Reso kidnappings, Unruh's rampage, and the celebrated success of America's Most Wanted in tracking down a man who'd slaughtered his entire family.

From her discovery by some of the top artists and photographers of the time in London, when she was the new bride of Edward Langtry, to her emergence as one of the most popular stage personalities of her era, Lillie's story could fill a hundred novels. She tells it all with discretion and humor in her autobiography, The Days I Knew.

The chilling true story of Oregon's most shocking killer! Jimmy Rode was serving a sentence for burglary in a Florida prison when he met serial killer Ted Bundy. It was Bundy who gave him a Seattle newspaper containing personal ads - an easy means for meeting vulnerable female victims - that launched Rode on a coast-to-coast killing spree under the alias of Cesar Barone. Now, in detail, Lasseter unleashes the story of Jimmy Rode.

During her more than 30 years of performing in the United States, Lillie Langtry came into contact with numerous men and women who are now legends. She was the mistress of Edward Albert, Prince of Wales and future King of England, then turned her talents to acting, her ultimate triumph. At first people came to see her out of curiosity, but she quickly won them over with her beauty, charm and personality if not her acting talent.

As the author of many true crime books, Don Lasseter has sometimes been asked to identify and rank the "worst of the worst" murderers. Considering the stunning variety of bloodthirsty methods used by these perps, and the horrific toll of victims, it would be difficult. Instead, in this book, he has profiled fifty of the most heinous killers in modern history for readers to discover and make their own rankings.

Reveals the harrowing story of two mothers, Jude Govreau and Mari Winzen, whose children were brutally killed by a vicious murderer, and recounts their efforts with a lone district attorney to bring the murderer to justice.

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau, one of the principal New England Transcendentalists, left the town for the country. Beside the lake of Walden, he built himself a log cabin and returned to nature, to observe and reflect, while surviving on $8 a year. From this experience emerged one of the great classics of American literature, a deeply personal reaction against the commercialism and materialism that he saw as the main impulses of mid-19th century America.