Books published by Fredonia Books (NL)

This is a collection of some of the best Chinese tales and anecdotes from the third to the sixth century. Most of these stories deal with the supernatural, some are folk tales, yet others are pen-pictures of historical figures. These stories give us exciting and intimate glimpses of four troubled centuries in Chinese history. Frequent civil wars made the lot of the Chinese people a bitter one. Peasants were often goaded to revolt, intellectuals to turn hermit or to seek consolation in wine or religion and the spread of Buddhism heightened the interest in the world of spirits. These tales have a unique place in Chinese literature and their influence upon the subsequent development of Chinese fiction was immense. Their form was copied right down to the nineteenth century, and some of them were adapted by later dramatists, poets or prose-writers. The stories are plentifully illustrated with reproductions of works of art which reflect the spirit and social background of their age.

Originally published in 1916, this book covers all the methods of mixing, proportioning, and application of plaster, mortar, stucco, lime, mastic and cement "in as simple and plain a manner as possible." The book includes much interesting history, and working drawings, ceiling designs and examples of ornamental stucco work. Fred T. Hodgson was an architect, editor of the National Builder, and author of other books on construction techniques.

This is a collection of 15 short stories written by the famous Chinese author Mao Tun during the period of 1927-44. Through these stories he depicts Chinese society in the thirties: calamities in the countryside and economic depression, caused by the dual pressure of imperialist aggression and feudal exploitation, as well as the misery of the people and the process of their awakening. He also describes the upheavals experienced by people of various classes and strata during the period of the Japanese invasion. He portrays various characters, including those workers who heroically resisted the enemy; students who took part in movements to save the nation; weak-kneed vacillating petty-bourgeois intellectuals; wealthy capitalists who hated the people and supported the reactionary policies of the Kuomintang government; stock exchange speculators, women employees and young, homeless waifs in the cities. Dealing with a wide range of subjects, this book is a mirror of the old China after the failure of the First Revolutionary Civil War, when it was under reactionary Kuomintang rule. These stories are outstanding for their progressive outlook and artistry. Shen Yanbing (1896-1981), better known by the pen name Mao Tun, was a member of the generation that created a truly vernacular Chinese literature in the early twentieth century. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he was named Minister of Culture.

An action-filled story of the Yukon Territory in 1893, the surging novel of the men who gambled their lives and opened the vast Canadian North in their lust for gold, Burning Daylight was Jack London's best selling book during his lifetime. It was filmed as a First National movie starring Milton Sills with Doris Kenyon. Jack London (1876-1916), an American novelist and short-story writer whose works deal romantically with elemental struggles for survival. At his peak, he was the highest paid and the most popular of all living writers. Because of early financial difficulties, he was largely self educated past grammar school. London draws heavily on his life experiences in his writing. He spent time in the Klondike during the Gold Rush and at various times was an oyster pirate, a seaman, a sealer, and a hobo. His first work was published in 1898. From there he went on to write such American classics as Call of the Wild, Sea Wolf, and White Fang.

This children's book tells the story of Finn, who was the father of the great poet Ossian. This is a story of the influence of St. Patrick (and hence Christianity) on the Irish people, with the mythical Finn as the centerpiece of this emergence of an Irish sentiment. A very interesting study in early Irish/pagan/druid history filled with all the usual characters including dragons and warriors and mystics. Standish James O'Grady (1846-1928) was a leading figure in the Irish Celtic literary renaissance. He grew up under the old feudal regime, passed through the great agrarian revolution, and finally lived to see Southern Ireland a Free State, ruled by a democracy.

This manual provides infantry doctrine, tactics, and techniques for urban combat at battalion level and below. The urban growth in all areas of the world places a high premium on the development of those skills described in this manual and on the highest standards of discipline and leadership.

Wentworth Webster published Basque Legends in 1877. Also included in this volume is "An Essay on the Basque Language" (1876) by Julien Vinson, and an essay on Basque poetry.

Originally published in 1915, this book goes into great technical detail on the qualities of different types of wood, tools, filling, staining, varnishing, polishing, gilding, enameling, and finishing all kinds of woodwork. Fred T. Hodgson was an architect, editor of the National Builder, and author of many other books on construction techniques.

These Danish folk-tales were originally collected by Svendt Grundtvig, a Danish professor and philologist (1824-1883). He found that throughout all the country districts, men and women were telling stories and reciting ballads that they had learned from their grandmothers, who, in their turn, had heard them from crooners of old songs, and tellers of old tales. Professor Grundtvig realized that these echoes of an earlier time were precious; that, if they were not perpetuated in written form, they would be lost. It was a labor of love on his part to collect these tales; a labor that lasted over twenty years, and that enlisted the aid of many of his countrymen. Grundtvig says that he has kept the simplicity and artlessness of the oral tradition; and that, in the case of varying versions from different parts of the country, he has taken the purer and more complete form, but has always preserved the epic unity. The translator of these tales spent a part of his boyhood in Denmark, where his father was United States Minister. There he heard many of these stories, which were told him by a manservant who came from Jutland. Jensen had not read any of these tales; but they, with many others, were stored in his memory. He had always known them, he said.

CONTENTS: Silver BlazeThe Yellow FaceThe Stock-Broker's Clerk The "Gloria Scott"The Musgrave RitualThe Reigate PuzzleThe Crooked ManThe Resident PatientThe Greek InterpreterThe Naval TreatyThe Final ProblemThis edition is printed in specially-designed large type for easier reading, and is printed on non-glare paper.

Gentle Reader, It is customary to omit prefaces. I beg you to make an exception in my particular case; I have something I really want to say. I have an object in this book, more than the mere telling of a story, and you can always judge of a book better if you compare it with the author's object. My object is to interpret to the world the New England life and character in that particular time of its history which may be called the seminal period. I would endeavor to show you New England in its seed-bed, before the hot suns of modern progress had developed its sprouting germs into the great trees of today.- Harriet Beecher Stowe in the character of Horace Holyoke

This book was the basis of the 1938 movie Call of the Yukon.James Oliver Curwood lived most of his life in Owosso, Michigan, where he was born on June 12, 1878. His first novel was The Courage of Captain Plum (1908) and he published one or two novels each year thereafter, until his death on August 13, 1927. Owosso residents honor his name to this day, and Curwood Castle (built in 1922) is the town's main tourist attraction. During the 1920s Curwood became one of America's best selling and most highly paid authors. This was the decade of his lasting classics The Valley of Silent Men (1920) and The Flaming Forest (1921). He and his wife Ethel were outdoors fanatics and active conservationists.

A major objective of this study was to develop procedures by which a dog handler can control the direction of off-leash movement of his dog by remote means in an unrestricted environment. Several dogs were successfully conditioned to respond to a tone signal to change direction and to make excursions of one-half mile or more under the control of terrain stimuli and of tone signals transmitted by radio. Automated procedures to train dogs to change direction in response to a tone were developed; in these procedures the learning contingencies of reinforcement were arranged by a computer control system. The learning of other scout dog skills is described in terms of sub-programs consisting of small, easy-to-learn steps.

Whitman's 1870 collection of poems including not only Passage to India but many Civil war poems, main selections from Leaves of Grass, and other collections. This is Whitman's famous poem-sequence, now back in print after many years.This title is cited and recommended by Books for College Libraries.

A young boy with the voice of a skylark, joins a troupe of traveling minstrels. Spirited away from Stratford-on-Avon, he has many adventures, both frightening and triumphant, and finds love through one of the players.No other contemporary work has portrayed the life and times of Elizabethan England with such accuracy.

CONTENTS:The Old Man's MittenThe Little Straw Bull with the Tarred BackSir Cat-o-PussThe Cat and the CockThe Wolf, the Dog and the CatNibbly-Quibbly the GoatSerkoTrixy-Vixy FoxThe PolecatThe Goat and the RamSmily-Wily the FoxThe Poor WolfLittle Sister Fox and Little Brother Wolf

A fascinating and entertaining story set in seventeenth century Transylvania revolving around events taking place subsequent to the coronation of a somewhat reluctant Prince Michael Apafi, whom the Turks raised to power. "The story is absorbingly interesting and displays all the virility of Jokai's powers, his genius of description, his keenness of characterization, his subtlety of humor and his consummate art in the progression of the novel from one apparent climax to another." - Literary World, LondonMaurus Jokai (1825 - 1904) was a Hungarian novelist who took part as a journalist in the revolution of 1848. He wrote about 200 novels, including Timar's Two Worlds, Black Diamonds, and The Romance of the Coming Century.

A Small Town Called Hibiscus is one of the best Chinese novels to have appeared in 1981. Its author Gu Hua was brought up in the Wuling Mountains of south Hunan. He presents the ups and downs of some families in a small mountain town there during the hard years in the early sixties, the "cultural revolution," and after the downfall of the "gang of four." He shows the horrifying impact on decent, hard-working people of the gang's ultra-Left line, and retains a sense of humor in describing the most harrowing incidents. In the end wrongs are righted, and readers are left with a deepened understanding of this abnormal period in Chinese history and the sterling qualities of the Chinese people.

CONTENTSOur First SuccessAn Eventful NightThe Sinking of the TransportRich SpoilsThe Witch-KettleA Day of TerrorA Lively ChaseThe British Bull-dogHomeward Bound!

Originally published in 1885, this work covers details of classical ornamentation of precious and not so precious stones, including rings, signets, cylinder seals, brooches, and other objects in everyday, business and ceremonial use. The author is particularly concerned with the language and symbolism of the decoration. This erudite text covers the history of Western intaglio gems from antiquity to the Renaissance with emphasis on ancient Greek and Roman gems. The second half of the work includes an analysis of copper plate and woodcut engravings concerning ancient artists.

This tale of the sea was written in 1847-48, and during the same year J. Fenimore Cooper was still occupied with the Naval Biographies, and also with The Crater. It was very seldom that he was actually engaged in writing two novels at the same time, but such was the case with The Crater and Jack Tier. The last, however, appeared as a monthly serial in "Graham's Magazine," and under the title of Rose Budd. When completed it was reprinted in a book form, and the name was changed to one much more appropriate. The date is the period of the Mexican War, when peace had only been proclaimed a few months earlier. The opening scenes occur at the wharves of New York and in Long Island Sound, where the Water-Witch had appeared nearly twenty years before. There is not the least similarity, however, between the plots or the incidents of the two books. It is indeed remarkable that after writing so large a number of tales of the sea, there should be still so much freshness and variety, in the latest of the series, both in the plot and in the details of the narrative. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was an American novelist, travel writer, and social critic, regarded as the first great American writer of fiction. He was famed for his action-packed plots and his vivid, if somewhat idealized, portrayal of American life in the forest and at sea.

This book was Henry Ford's personal attempt to thwart the public's growing love affair with cigarettes. It features a letter from Ford's friend, inventor Thomas Edison, which reads "Friend Ford, The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed, is called "Acrolein." It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes. Yours, Thomas A. Edison." Ford also references his discussions regarding cigarettes with the eminent naturalist John Burroughs. The entire pamphlet focuses on discouraging smoking in childhood. Mr. Ford compiled various other testimonials from famous persons giving their opinions on the evils of cigarettes, as well as the rebuttals from Percival I. Hill, President of the American Tobacco Company.