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The Wind in the Willows By Kenneth GrahameThe Wind in the Willows is a children's novel by Scottish novelist Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternatingly slow-moving and fast-paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animals: Mole, Rat (a European water vole), Toad, and Badger. They live in a pastoral version of Edwardian England. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie, and celebrated for its evocation of the nature of the Thames Valley.In 1908, Grahame retired from his position as secretary of the Bank of England. He moved back to Berkshire, where he had lived as a child, and spent his time by the River Thames, doing much as the animal characters in his book do - to quote, "simply messing about in boats" - and expanding the bedtime stories he had earlier told his son Alastair into a manuscript for the book.The novel was in its 31st printing when playwright A. A. Milne adapted part of it for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall in 1929. In 1949, the first film adaptation was produced by Walt Disney as one of two segments in the package film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.In 2003, The Wind in the Willows was listed at #16 in the BBC's survey The Big Read. More than a century after its original publication, it was adapted again for the stage, as a 2014 musical by Julian Fellowes.Kenneth Grahame was born on 8 March 1859 in Edinburgh. When he was 5, his mother died from puerperal fever, and his father, who had a drinking problem, gave the care of his four children over to their grandmother, who lived in Cookham Dean in Berkshire. There they lived in a spacious but dilapidated home, The Mount, in extensive grounds by the River Thames, and were introduced to the riverside and boating by their uncle, David Ingles, curate at Cookham Dean church.At Christmas 1865 the chimney of the house collapsed and the children moved to Fern Hill Cottage in Cranbourne, Berkshire. In 1866, their father tried to overcome his drinking problem and took the children back to live with him in Argyll, Scotland, but after a year they returned to their grandmother's house in Cranbourne, where Kenneth lived until he entered St Edward's School, Oxford in 1868. During his early years at St. Edwards the boys were free to explore the old city with its quaint shops, historic buildings, and cobbled streets, St Giles' Fair, the idyllic upper reaches of the River Thames, and the nearby countryside.Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899, when he was 40 the next year they had their only child, a boy named Alastair (whose nickname was "Mouse") born premature, blind in one eye, and plagued by health problems throughout his life.

A Study in Scarlet is an 1887 detective novel written by Arthur Conan Doyle. The story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in popular fiction.

How We ThinkJohn Dewey No words are oftener on our lips than thinking and thought. So profuse and varied, indeed, is our use of these words that it is not easy to define just what we mean by them. The aim of this chapter is to find a single consistent meaning. Assistance may be had by considering some typical ways in which the terms are employed. In the first place thought is used broadly, not to say loosely. Everything that comes to mind, that "goes through our heads," is called a thought. To think of a thing is just to be conscious of it in any way whatsoever. Second, the term is restricted by excluding whatever is directly presented we think (or think of) only such things as we do not directly see, hear, smell, or taste. Then, third, the meaning is further limited to beliefs that rest upon some kind of evidence or testimony. Of this third type, two kinds-or, rather, two degrees-must be discriminated. In some cases, a belief is accepted with slight or almost no attempt to state the grounds that support it. In other cases, the ground or basis for a belief is deliberately sought and its adequacy to support the belief examined. This process is called reflective thought it alone is truly educative in value, and it forms, accordingly, the principal subject of this volume. We shall now briefly describe each of the four senses. I. In its loosest sense, thinking signifies everything that, as we say, is "in our heads" or that "goes through our minds." He who offers "a penny for your thoughts" does not expect to drive any great bargain. In calling the objects of his demand thoughts, he does not intend to ascribe to them dignity, consecutiveness, or truth. Any idle fancy, trivial recollection, or flitting impression will satisfy his demand. Daydreaming, building of castles in the air, that loose flux of casual and disconnected material that floats through our minds in relaxed moments are, in this random sense, thinking. More of our waking life than we should care to admit, even to ourselves, is likely to be whiled away in this inconsequential trifling with idle fancy and unsubstantial hope. In this sense, silly folk and dullards think. The story is told of a man in slight repute for intelligence, who, desiring to be chosen selectman in his New England town, addressed a knot of neighbors in this wise: "I hear you don't believe I know enough to hold office. I wish you to understand that I am thinking about something or other most of the time." Now reflective thought is like this random coursing of things through the mind in that it consists of a succession of things thought of but it is unlike, in that the mere chance occurrence of any chance "something or other" in an irregular sequence does not suffice. Reflection involves not simply a sequence of ideas, but a consequence-a consecutive ordering in such a way that each determines the next as its proper outcome, while each in turn leans back on its predecessors. The successive portions of the reflective thought grow out of one another and support one another they do not come and go in a medley.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman - is a much celebrated and classic tale by one of the worlds most loved authors. This work is considered an important early work in feminist literature and one which explored issues about women's health, both physical and mental. It is an important and influential work, and a great addition to any book collection. This short story is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental. Presented in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment, the unnamed woman is forbidden from working, and is encouraged to eat well and get plenty of exercise and air, so she can recuperate from what he calls a "temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency", a diagnosis common to women in that period. Gilman used her writing to explore the role of women in America at the time. She explored issues such as the lack of a life outside the home and the oppressive forces of the patriarchal society. Through her work Gilman paved the way for writers such as Alice Walker and Sylvia Plath.

First published in 1904, "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" by L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz, describes the action of some uncommon events in the land of Santa. Not far from the Laughing Valley where Santa and all his magical helpers live, and beyond the Forest of Burzee, there stands a huge mountain that contains the Cave of Demons. Each demon has a specialty: Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance. Because the promise of Santa puts all girls and boys on their best behavior, the demons have hardly any visitors to their caves. In order to remedy their dismal foot traffic, they conspire to kidnap Santa! But oh! even when it looks as if the demons might win, one can never underestimate the power of devoted (and magical!) friends. Adapted by Alex Robinson, author of several graphic novels, the action and menace of the tale will be enhanced and lightly spoofed. It seems a most appropriate treatment of Baum's work -- he was an author who often let his profound and unsettling meanings roil beneath the surface of his otherwise fanciful stories."A Kidnapped Santa Claus" is a Christmas-themed short story written by L. Frank Baum, famous as the creator of the Land of Oz it has been called "one of Baum's most beautiful stories" and constitutes an influential contribution to the mythology of Christmas."A Kidnapped Santa Claus" was first published in the December 1904 edition of The Delineator, the women's magazine that would print Baum's Animal Fairy Tales in the following year. ¿The magazine text was "admirably illustrated" with "pen drawings of marked originality"by Frederick Richardson, who would illustrate Baum's Queen Zixi of Ix in 1905."A Kidnapped Santa Claus" was published two years after Baum's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), and shares its mythological cosmos: in the story as in the novel, Santa lives in the Laughing Valley on the border of the Forest of Burzee, and is assisted by knooks, ryls, fairies, and pixies. In modern editions the two works, novel and story, are sometimes published together.Though the short story has strong similarities with the novel, it has been interpreted as presenting "a less rosy view" of the world, in that it shows elements of evil as fundamental to existence and ineradicable.