Today on Project Gutenberg #61

Today on Project Gutenberg, we have... Feeding the Mind by Lewis Carroll Shock of all shocks, Lewis Carroll did more than just write Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I mean, I knew that, but do most people? We might also call him by his real name, Charles Dodgson, if we feel …

Today on Project Gutenberg #56

Today on Project Gutenberg we have... The Bitter Cry of Outcast London by Andrew Mearns and William C. Preston "Being poor sucks" has always been a popular topic of nonfiction, and no one writes that genre quite like the Victorians. Today's example comes to us from 1883, and though it's not as elaborate as other …

Today on Project Gutenberg #54

Another day, another weird rabbit hole. Today on Project Gutenberg, we have... Life in a Tank by Richard Haigh Pop quiz! When was the modern tank introduced into warfare? Believe it or not, we can trace it down to an exact date. Like many things which are good at killing people, the modern military tank …

Today on Project Gutenberg #52

Today on Project Gutenberg, we have... The Story of the Alphabet by Edward Clodd We all know our ABCs, but where did they come from? The evolution of our Latin alphabet was a complicated process lasting thousands of years, and many books could be written on the subject. This is one such book. Edward Clodd …

Today on Project Gutenberg #51

I haven't abandoned this series, I swear. I've simply run into a bad combination of having other projects to work on and not being very interested in any of the possible options I've tried to write about. But I'm going to keep working, and I hope you'll pardon the interlude. Anyway! Today on Project Gutenberg, …

30k in 30 Days: A Writing Guide

As I type this, it's been over a month since the end of April, the month I undertook my plan to write 30,000 words of a story in 30 days. And since I successfully completed that daunting task, I've wanted to write something about how I managed it. Stuff about the planning and prep stages, …

Today on Project Gutenberg #50

Today on Project Gutenberg, we have... London's Underworld by Thomas Holmes The Victorian era turned the subject of poverty into a veritable subgenre of literature. The most famous of these books would be Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, written throughout the 1840s and formally published in 1851. Today's book, London's Underworld, follows …

Today on Project Gutenberg #42

Today on Project Gutenberg, we have... Heroes of To-Day by Mary Rosetta Parkman "To-Day," in this instance, refers to 1917, when this book was published, and according to author Mary Rosetta Parkman, a hero can mean all sorts of different things. In her mind, the heroes of the late 1910s were "fighting...not against flesh and …

Today on Project Gutenberg #17

Today on Project Gutenberg we have... From Paper-mill to Pressroom by William Bond Wheelwright What are all the things you never knew about paper-making and didn't really care to know? Well, obviously you couldn't answer that. You don't know. But this book is here to fix that! Published in 1920, the premise of this non-fiction …

Today on Project Gutenberg #11

Today on Project Gutenberg, we have... Inventing for Boys by A. Frederick Collins Ah, the glorious days of yesteryear, when childhood was all about exploring the world and getting your hands dirty! If you were a boy, at least. Not that today's book has an explicit NO COOTIES ALLOWED sign stamped on it, but since …