Classic Authors |
 William Walker Atkinson
Prominent in the New Thought Movement, Atkinson wrote books on such occult subjects as mind reading and clairvoyance under numerous pseudonyms, including Yogi Ramacharaka, Swami Panchadasi, Theodore Sheldon, Swami Bhakta Vishita, and Theron Q. Dumont. He was considered an expert on mentalism, psychic phenomena, and metaphysical healing.
MIND READING and CLAIRVOYANCE
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 Lt. Gen. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, K.C.B.
You know him as the founder if the Boy Scouts, but he was also a spy. While serving in the British Army in India and Africa, Baden-Powell did most of the reconnaissance work himself. After returning from the Second Boer War, he rewrote his military training manual to suit Scouting.
MY ADVENTURES AS A SPY
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 Sabine Baring-Gould
An Anglican priest and novelist, he was known for his folkloric studies. His treatises cover such topics as were-wolves, strange events, and myths of the Middle Ages.
THE BOOK OF WERE-WOLVES
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 Phineas Taylor Barnum
The noted showman founded the Barnum & Bailey Circus, now part of Ringling Brothers. P.T. Barnum is famous for his great hoaxes and curiosities, in particular the Feejee Mermaid and General Tom Thumb.
P.T. BARNUM’S BIG PICTURE BOOK OF HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD
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 Robert C. Benchley
An American humorist, Benchley was a central member of the fabled Algonquin Roundtable. Mainly he wrote essays for such esteemed publications as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, but he also won an Academy Award for "How to Sleep."
LOVE CONQUERS ALL
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 Ambrose Bierce
Known for his satire and short stories, Bierce was also a sharp-tongued critic. He penned “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and compiled a humorous lexicon. He mysteriously disappeared while riding with the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa.
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
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 Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was a prolific fantasy and horror writer who wrote 12 novels, a couple of plays, some poetry, and more than 200 short stories, as well as an autobiography. Born in Shooter's Hill, Kent, he grew up in a strict Calvinist family. His mother was the Duchess of Manchester and his father was her second husband, Sir Stevenson Arthur Blackwood, who later became Secretary of the Post Office. After graduating from Cambridge, he spent a year abroad in Switzerland, and later settled in Canada. Financially troubled, he moved to New York to work as a newspaper reporter. After being swindled of his money, he returned to England where he began to write gothic and supernatural stories. He began reading his stories on radio and television, earning himself the nickname of Ghost Man.
THE EMPTY HOUSE
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 Ernest Bramah
Author of 21 books, his detective stories are compared to Arthur Conan Doyle's and his science fiction with H.G. Wells. His writings influenced George Orwell. His two most notable characters are the blind detective Max Carrados and the Chinese storyteller Kai Lung.
MAX CARRADOS, DETECTIVE
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 Ellis Parker Butler
Ellis Parker Butler (1869 –1937) was the author of more than 30 books and 2,000 stories and essays. His most famous short story was “Pigs Is Pigs,” about a stationmaster levying the livestock rate for a shipment of two pet guinea pigs that start proliferating. His stories, poems, and articles have published in more than 225 magazines.
PHILO GUBB, CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL DETECTIVE
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 Charles Wadsworth Camp
Charles Wadsworth Camp was a journalist and writer. His novels and stories were made into seven movies. Born in Pennsylvania, he settled in Jacksonville, Florida. A relative described him: "He was a big, handsome man in a white linen suit smoking cigarettes on the porch and drinking whiskey." While working as a foreign correspondent his lungs were damaged by mustard gas. With weakened lungs, he died of pneumonia at the age of 57. He was the father of noted writer Madeleine L'Engle.
ABANDONED ROOM
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 John W. Campbell, Jr.
The longtime editor of ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact, Campbell played a major role in shaping the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Among his repertoire of writers were such sci-fi greats as Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Lester del Rey, Theodore Sturgeon, and Jack Williamson.
JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR.: SCIENCE FICTION GENIUS
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 G.K. Chesterton
A theologian, poet, art critic, and orator, Chesterton created the popular detective Father Brown. He wrote some 80 books, several hundred poems, about 200 short stories, 4,000 essays, and several plays. His witty works earned him the acclamation as "The Prince of Paradox."
FATHER BROWN SAVES THE DAY
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 John Cleland
Known for his "puckish and quarrelsome" personality, Cleland often found himself in trouble. Kicked out of good schools, arrested for unpaid debts, and taken to court for writing bawdy novels, he was eventually awarded an annuity by the British government to prevent his writing further "obscenities."
THE MEMOIRS OF FANNY HILL
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 George J. Cox
A pottery instructor at the Teachers College of Columbia University, vases by Cox are quite collectible. He is noted for his Mortlake art pottery, large ornamental wares inspired by early Chinese styles and decorated with monochrome glazes. His Mortlake Pottery workshop in London closed down when he moved to the US to teach.
BASICS OF . . . POTTERY
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 F. Scott Fitzgerald
Regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, he coined the term “Jazz Age.” Married to the irrepressible Zelda, he was a contemporary of Hemingway in Paris. The Great Gatsby is considered his masterpiece, “a flawless novel.”
FLAPPERS AND PHILOSOPHERS (ILLUSTRATED)
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 Richard Austin Freeman
Richard Austin Freeman is a British writer known for his detective stories featuring the forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke. Trained as a doctor, Freeman joined the Colonial Service wherein he was stationed on the Gold Coast of Africa. Contracting blackwater fever, he returned to London and began writing fiction. He is credited with inventing the Inverted Detective Story, where the crime and perpetrator are revealed in the beginning and the book describes the investigator’s process in solving the mystery.
VANISHING MAN
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 Sigmund Freud
The founder of psychoanalysis, Dr. Freud developed “the talking cure” for mental problems. He considered the Oedipal Complex to be a central tenet of his psychoanalytical theory.
DREAM PSYCHOLOGY
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 George Stuart Fullerton
A philosopher and psychologist, he served as president of the American Psychological Association. Appointed head of the philosophy department at Columbia University, he wrote numerous books on the subject.
AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY
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 Zane Grey
A dentist who lived in the Florida Keys, Grey is considered one of the foremost writers about the Old West. He hosted presidents and celebrities, introducing them to sportfishing.
ZANE GREY’S TWO-GUN TALES 1
ZANE GREY’S TWO-GUN TALES 2
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Charles L. Goodrich
Goodrich is known as an expert with the Bureau of Plant Industry, at the United States Department of Agriculture.
BASICS OF … FARMING
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 Charles Gould
Born in England, Charles Gould was a widely acclaimed geologist, noted for surveying Tasmania, the Bass Strait Islands, and New South Wales. He is listed in the Encyclopedia of Australian Science. He was a forerunner of modern-day cryptozoologists. No, he never met a unicorn.
MYTHOLOGICAL MONSTERS (Illustrated)
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Jennie Hall
A history teacher and sometimes archeologist, Hall mostly wrote travel memoirs. Her stories are known for their "vibrant narratives and vivid descriptions."
BURIED CITIES
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Marion Harvey
The author of several mystery novels and plays, Harvey created the Sherlock Holmes-worshipping detective Graydon McKelvie, whom S.S. Van Dine called "extremely clever."
THE MYSTERY OF THE HIDDEN ROOM
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Fred Maier Hexamer
A well-known horticulturist, F.M. Hexamer is an authority on foods and gardening. He served as a member of the Bedford Farmers Club.
ALMIGHTY ASPARAGUS!
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 Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo was a celebrated French Romantic author best known for his novels Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and Les Misérables.
Born on February 26, 1802, in Besançon, France, he was trained as a lawyer, but chose a literary career instead. He established himself as one of the most important poets, novelists and dramatists of his time, having assembled a massive body of work while living in Paris, Brussels and the Channel Islands.
Hugo’s novel Les Misérables was published in 1862. It became an immediate success in Europe and the United States. Later Les Misérables was reinterpreted as a theatrical musical and several films, establishing it as one of the best-known works of 19th century literature. It is commonly called Les Miz, for short.
Victor-Marie Hugo died on May 22, 1885, in Paris.
LES MISERABLES
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 Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth
Rev. Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth is considered “the Father of American Beekeeping.” Langstroth is popularly credited with discovering the “bee space.” He was the inventor of the Langstroth Hive, the most commonly used hive design today.
BASICS OF BEEKEEPING
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Henry Lee
Henry Lee served a naturalist with the Brighton Aquarium. He is best known for his research on the octopus. His books often looked at the sensational side of sea life. He is the author of The Octopus, or The Devil-Fish of Fiction and Fact.
SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED (Illustrated)
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 William Richard Lethaby
An English architect and architectural historian, Lethaby writes about woodcarving and woodworking. His ideas were influential on the Arts and Crafts Movement.
BASICS OF . . . WOODCARVING
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 Edward Verrall Lucas
An editor, biographer, and playwright, E.V. Lucas was also a world traveler. His forays to Italy and other European countries are reflected in his novels and travel memoirs.
A WANDERER IN VENICE (ILLUSTRATED)
(Available Soon)
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 George MacDonald
George MacDonald (1824-1905), Scottish Victorian novelist, began his adult life as a clergyman and always considered himself a poet first of all. His unorthodox views resulted in a very short career in the pulpit, after which he turned to writing in earnest. He initially attracted notice for poetry and his adult fantasy, but once he turned to the writing of realistic novels in the early 1860s his name became widely known throughout Great Britain and the U.S. Over the next thirty years he wrote some fifty books, including, in addition to the novels, more poetry, short stories, fantasy, sermons, essays, and a full-length study of Hamlet. His influential body of work placed him alongside the great Victorian men of letters and his following was vast.
THE GOBLIN BOOKS
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 Lucy Maud Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in the village of Clifton (now New London) on Prince Edward Island, a province of Canada. Young Maud went to live with her maternal grandparents, a stern Presbyterian couple who maintained the Post Office on Prince Edward Island's north shore. Their rambling farm was the inspiration for "Green Gables," now part of a Provincial Park. Although trained as a teacher, she became known for this series of young adult novels that began with Anne of Green Gables.
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
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 Andre Alice Norton AKA Andrew North and Allen Weston
Often called "The Grand Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy," Andre Alice Norton (née Alice Mary Norton) also is known by the pen names of Andrew North and Allen Weston. Practically minded, she knew science fiction books by men sold better to the male fan base. Nonetheless, Norton was the first woman to become a Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy, the first woman to become an SFWA Grand Master, and the first woman to be inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 1998 she won the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN 2
ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN 3
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 Bill Nye
Bill Nye, more formally known as Edgar Wilson Nye, was the founder of Wyoming’s Laramie Boomerang. He named the paper for his mule, Boomerang. Nye was considered “Wyoming’s most celebrated citizen” and remains one of the state’s most famous historical figures. By the 1890s, thanks to the publication of more than 16 books, two plays and a national tour of stage performances, Nye was the nation’s best-known humorist, and at $30,000 a year, its highest paid.
Bill Nye Comic History
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Swami Panchadasi
(See William Walker Atkinson)
CLAIRVOYANCE
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Randall Parrish
Although many of Randall Parrish's book are about the Old West, he was a Midwesterner born in Rose Cottage in Kewanee, Illinois. After graduating from law school, he joined a firm in Wichita, Kansas, and eventually became city attorney. Switching career, he became a reporter with the Rocky Mountain News, the start of a long career with various newspapers. While working with the Associated Press, he published his first work of fiction, "When Wilderness Was King". Numerous popular novels followed.
THE STRANGE CASE OF CAVENDISH: SECOND TAKE
BETH NORVELL: SECOND TAKE
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 Elizabeth Robins Pennell
An American writer living in London, Pennell has been described as “an adventurous, accomplished, self-assured, well-known columnist, biographer, cookbook collector, and art critic.” Her travelogues often recounted her cycling excursions in Europe. Her uncle was the famous folklorist, Charles Godfrey Leland.
NIGHTS ABROAD
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 Moses Quinby
One of America’s first commercial beekeepers, Quinby maintained an apiary of some 12,000 hives in the Mohawk Valley. He is often called “the father of commercial honey production.”
BASICS OF … BEEKEEPING
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 Mary Robbins Rinehart
Dubbed “the American Agatha Christie,” Rinehart is famous for her mysteries. She is credited with inventing the Had-I-But-Known mystery genre. Also, “The Butler Did It” is attributed to Rinehart, although she never actually used the phrase.
LOVE STORIES
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 Sarah Tyson Rorer
An editor at Ladies’ Home Journal and later Good Housekeeping, Rorer was a specialist "in the field of domestic science." She authored a number of cookbooks.
MANY WAYS FOR COOKING EGGS
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Thomas Seltzer
Thomas Seltzer is best known as a Russian-American translator and editor. Born in Russia, he moved to the United States with his family as a child. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, then did his postgraduate studies at Columbia. With his skill in multiple languages (Russia, Polish, Italian, Yiddish, French, German, and English), he was readily hired as a translator. He worked as a journalist for such magazines as Harper’s Weekly. He is credited with introducing the writings of D.H. Lawrence to America.
RUSSIA'S BEST SHORT STORIES
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William Scott-Elliot
William Scott-Elliot (1849-1919) was a merchant banker and part-time anthropologist. An early member of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, he elaborated on Helena Blavatsky’s concept of root races in several publications, including The Evolution of Humanity. He was awarded the T. Subba Row Medal for his contributions to “esoteric science and philosophy.” An amateur anthropologist, Scott-Elliot's theosophical writings elaborated on Helena Blavatsky's theories about Atlantian and Lemurian root races. His scholarly research attempted to back up the "clairvoyant findings" of controversial theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater.
THE ATLANTIS MANUSCRIPTS
(Available Soon)
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 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Best known for writing the Gothic novel Frankenstein, she was married to the celebrated poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The daughter of feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Godwin, she lived a literary life. Running away with Shelley at 17, she remained a champion of his poetry throughout her life.
MARY SHELLEY’S FORBIDDEN DREAMS
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 Walter Terence Stace
A longtime professor of philosophy at Princeton University, W.T. Stace was an epistemologist who wrote about Hegel, mysticism, and moral relativity.
AN INTRODUCTION TO GREEK PHILOSOPHY
(Available Soon)
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 Gertrude Stein
After moving to Paris, Stein’s salon on the Left Bank became a sanctuary for such writers and artists as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali, and Matisse. A cult literary figure, she was known for collecting Modernist art.
TENDER BUTTONS
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 Burton Egbert Stevenson
Burton Egbert Stevenson was an American author, anthologist, and librarian. While at Princeton, Stevenson was a correspondent for United Press and The New York Tribune. He worked as a journalist with various newspapers before becoming director of the Chillicothe, Ohio, public library, a position he held for 58 years. In addition to being a librarian, Stevenson wrote numerous novels, edited others’ works, and created numerous anthologies of verse, familiar quotations, and the like.
THE GLOVED HAND
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 Bram Stoker
Famed as the creator of Dracula, Abraham Stoker was the manager of a London theater who found success writing about the undead bloodsuckers of Transylvania.
DRACULA’S GUEST
BRAM STOKER WITHOUT FANGS
THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM
DRACULA’S GUEST
BRAM STOKER WITHOUT FANGS
THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM
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 Rex Stout
Creator of the corpulent sleuth Nero Wolf, Stout began his career writing for pulp magazines. A Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, he did much to further writers’ rights.
UNDER THE ANDES
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 Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (1809 –1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during Queen Victoria's reign. His famous poems include "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "Crossing of the Bar." Among his most recognizable phrases are "'Tis better to have loved and lost/ Than never to have loved at all," "Theirs not to reason why,/ Theirs but to do and die," and "My strength is as the strength of ten,/ Because my heart is pure."
THE SUPPRESSED POEMS OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
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 Will W. Tracy
Tracy worked in the Bureau of Plant Industry, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture.
TERRIFIC TOMATOES!
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 Mark Twain
Born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Twain has been called “The Father of American Literature. A humorist, his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered by many to be "the Great American Novel."
THE ILLLUSTRATED DIARY OF ADAM AND EVE
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 Walt Whitman
Whitman’s poetry is considered to be part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism. His magnum opus poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, was considered at the time of its publication "obscene for its overt sexuality."
LEAVES OF GRASS: THE ELECTRIC EDITION
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 Marshal Pinckney Wilder
This diminutive actor overcame his physical disability with humorous monologues and comic film roles. Despite suffering from dwarfism and kyphosis, he "coaxed the frown of adverse fortune into a smile," according to the Washington Post.
AMERICA'S HUMOROUS & HEARTWARMING VERSE
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 Paul Work
This editor of Market Growers Journal was also Professor of Vegetable Crops at Cornell University.
TERRIFIC TOMATOES!
(Available Soon)
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 Hugo Ziemann
A former Chief Kitchen Steward of the White House, Ziemann served several U.S. Presidents. His recipes from the White House comprise one of the most enduring cookbooks in American history.
EAT LIKE A PRESIDENT: THE WHITE HOUSE COOKBOOK
(Available Soon)
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