Reference

Entertaining, informative, and enlightening! Educational, eyebrow-raising, and profound. Science has never been this much fun! Take a weird and wonderful tour of the every branch of science with this treat of stories, trivia, and facts!

From Earth’s weight gain thanks to the many tons of cosmic dust that falls on the planet each year to William A. Mitchell, the inventor of Tang, Cool Whip, and Pop Rocks candy, The Book of Facts and Trivia: Science combines the educational, profound, and trivial into a fascinating collection of science facts! You’ll learn about yourself and the world through hundreds of absorbing stories and interesting tidbits such as …

From Juan Ponce de León to John Wayne to Jane Doe to the little-known stories hidden inside bigger historical events, The Book of Facts and Trivia: American History combines the educational, profound, and trivial into a rich account of American history facts (and the interesting role Johns—and Juans and Janes—played along the way)! You’ll learn about the United States through hundreds of absorbing stories and interesting tidbits such as …

From astonishing, amazing and surprising science and history facts to the little-known stories hidden inside bigger events, The Big Book of Facts is a fascinating tour through our weird and interesting world. You’ll learn about the earth and its history through absorbing stories and interesting tidbits. Did you know …

Engrossing, engaging, and enlightening, The Big Book of Facts lets you discover the fun oddities that make up our world. Wide-ranging and fact-filled with nearly 160 illustrations, this information-rich tome also includes a helpful bibliography and an extensive index for those scrambling for more information.

An American diplomat traveling the world over is grounded by a chance encounter with a haiku group.

Abigail Friedman was an American diplomat in Tokyo, not a writer. A chance encounter leads her to a haiku group, where she discovers poetry that anyone can enjoy writing. Her teacher and fellow haiku group members instruct her in seasonal flora and fauna, and gradually she learns to describe the world in plain words, becoming one of the millions in Japan who lead a haiku life.

This is the author's story of her literary and cultural voyage, and more: it is an invitation to readers to form their own neighborhood haiku groups and, like her, learn to see the world anew.

A Little Book of Self-Care for Brides is your antidote to wedding planning overwhelm . . . because being a bride isn’t all bliss.

With reassuring advice, positive affirmations, and inspirational quotes, A Little Book of Self-Care for Brides offers gentle support for brides who need a break. With simple, accessible ideas and meditations—plus beautiful watercolor illustrations—this gorgeous gift book is an invitation for brides to breathe and de-stress. Each page helps brides-to-be take care of themselves while wedding planning, ensuring they can bring calm to the chaos of managing guest expectations, deciding on vendors, and tackling ever-growing to-do lists. It’s filled with practical guidance for the months of planning and the day itself—including how to enjoy your wedding ceremony and reception with grace and ease. A foreword from a veteran wedding planner and a resources section round out this essential book.

A collection of 600 proverbs in Chinese and English, capturing the enduring wisdom of China, for travelers and language students.

This treasury of Chinese wisdom presents over five hundred proverbs while offering keys to culture and language. Here are both the familiar, earnest sayings of Confucius and Lao Zi ("The longest journey begins with a single step") and the homespun truths of every day ("Teachers open the door; you enter by yourself"). Designed both for inspirational browsing and for students of language and culture, the text is organized by subject (Learning, Patience, Money, Family, Food, etc.) and provides commentary plus Chinese characters and pinyin romanization for each entry. Includes an index.

The Ben cao gang mu, compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (1518–1593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, is the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition of Chinese materia medica works. Its description of almost 1,900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge. The Ben cao gang mu dictionary offers access to this impressive work of 1,600,000 characters. This second book in a three-volume series verifies and localizes all 2,158 geographical and associated administrative names referred to in the Ben cao gang mu in connection with the origin and use of pharmaceutical substances.

The Devil’s Dictionary (1906) is a work of satire by Ambrose Bierce. Although he is commonly remembered for his chilling short stories on the experiences of Civil War soldiers, Bierce was recognized in his day as a leading journalist and humorist who spent decades ruffling feathers and drawing laughter with his witty opinion columns, poems, and definitions. Toward the end of his career, he decided to compile these satirical definitions into a book, following in the footsteps of Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster, and Gustave Flaubert. Immensely popular upon publication, The Devil’s Dictionary inspired countless imitators, but remains one-of-a-kind. Reading Bierce’s definitions today, it’s not hard to imagine the controversy they must have caused, matched only by the laughs they must have roused, when published at the onset of the twentieth century. Written during a period of undaunted industrial growth, of immense wealth and promise in a nation recently torn apart by civil war, The Devil’s Dictionary preserves a tantalizing touch of irreverence and doubt which must remain funny to those who know humor when they sense it. “AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful providence for the fattening of the poor.” “CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.” Crafted for the cynic, quoted by the misanthrope, Bierce’s definitions prove profoundly entertaining and frequently accurate—sort of—over a century after they were published. This edition of Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Vampires and Vampirism (1914) is a work from another era, a time when belief and wonder led some to travel down pathways of knowledge in search of truth and terror, not knowing what they would find.

Written in response to an “awakened [popular] interest in supernormal phenomena” in the early twentieth century, Dudley Wright’s Vampires and Vampirism traces the history of vampirism around the world, from ancient Babylonia, Assyria, and Greece, to Great Britain, Germany, and Eastern Europe. Beginning with the question “What is a vampire?”, Wright seeks to first define the term before moving into an analysis of how belief in vampirism emerged from various and distant religious and cultural traditions. Each chapter uses a scholarly mix of ancient and modern sources to enlighten the reader, and the book culminates in a chapter titled “Fact or Fiction?”, which allows the reader to hear from believers and skeptics alike. The book includes harrowing personal accounts of outbreaks of vampirism in British India and Mexico, as well as a lengthy bibliography.

In a world where matters of occult nature, such as astrology, have reentered the popular consciousness, Vampires and Vampirism is sure to be of interest. It is also a fascinating document of a time when Europeans—faced with spiritual doubt and inspired by religious traditions and myths from the outer reaches of empire—sought to establish new systems of belief, new orders they hoped could replace those they feared were quickly becoming lost.

At times despicable, and always controversial, Dudley Wright was a tireless searcher whose life included conversions to Islam and Catholicism, forays into anti-Semitism—later retracted—and a deep, spiritual involvement with organizations dedicated to matters both visible and invisible, true and beyond belief.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this new edition of Dudley Wright’s Vampires and Vampirism is a classic of history and horror reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Seldom, if ever, has there lived in the United States a foreign-born writer who has won such universal acclaim and made such an impact on the American literary scene as Thomas Mann. Not only have Mann's works, with very few exceptions, been translated but he is also one of the most eagerly collected of all modern authors. This volume will serve any student of literature, or collector, who is anxious to locate materials on Thomas Mann. Thomas Mann Studies, Volume II, is intended first of all as the bibliographical record for the period from 1954 to 1965.

Since the death of Mann in 1955, a vast amount of material has been published about the man and his work. This extraordinary book lists almost four thousand items of criticism about the novelist which are not to be found in any previous bibliography. By far the majority of the items are in German, followed by a large number in English, French, Italian, and Swedish. Other languages represented include Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, Romanian, Danish, Polish, and Russian.

Achieving its primary purpose of facilitating research in the rapidly growing area of Thomas Mann studies throughout the world, this book forms the complete record of critical, secondary literature about Mann, published as well as unpublished, through 1965. It also contains a comprehensive chapter on Mann's manuscripts, describing the public and private collections in which his papers are now preserved.

The two-hundredth anniversary in 1976 of the publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations emphasized the already evident new interest in the relationship between Smith's social and political thought and his economic theory. Only recently have economists turned their attention to Smith's other works, long overshadowed by the more renowned The Wealth of Nations. Martha Lightwood here argues that A Theory of Moral Sentiments actually laid the philosophic groundwork for The Wealth of Nations and emphasizes that Smith's writings, considered in their totality, represent a compelling interest not solely in economics but in philosophy and the study of society.

Selected for this bibliography are major contributions and representative studies on three aspects of Smith's work: moral philosophy, the history of the development of scientific methodology, and political economy.

This work is an analytic bibliography of the writings of Jonathan Swift, containing a listing of every known edition or issue of Swift's work down to the year 1814 (except for the section "Biography and Criticism" which extends from 1709 to 1895). In this revised edition, Herman Teerink has added full collations of the works referred to. In addition, the titles of many 18th century mutations or parodies of Swift have been included together with works which allude to Swift or his writings.

Arthur H. Scouten, a University of Pennsylvania professor of English and author of many bibliographical articles on Swift, who has carried on Dr. Teerink's work and prepared this volume for press, has consulted 18th century scholars and bibliographers. With their advice, he has kept the original Teerink numbers, since they are the common reference numbers among Swift scholars and are listed in dealers' catalogues. Because the new material and arrangement put these numbers out of order, they have been listed in a table at the beginning of the book with all the pages they appear on.

So that they will not have to be sought throughout the entire volume, all the Faulkner editions have been placed together and all the printings of Gulliver's Travels have been collected in one section, where they are arranged chronologically by country. A full physical description of all important books and pamphlets, including those discovered since 1937 (the first edition), has been provided. The work has been brought up-to-date with the bibliographical findings of Swift scholarship of the past twenty-five years. A number of pieces apocryphally attributed to Swift have been deleted or placed in the "Doubtful" section. Finally, entries of books and pamphlets containing contemporary comment on a work by Swift have been placed where Swift's work itself is entered.

This book is especially rich in its listings of translations of Swift's works into foreign languages. Also, since the first edition (A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Jonathan Swift, D.D.) has long been out of print, this volume will be invaluable to book dealers, bibliophiles, and scholars, teachers, and students of English literature.

This is a scholar's Baedeker for locating and using most efficiently the documents in the diplomatic archives of Western Europe, including Greece and Finland. Some 22 historians and archivists collectively provide chapters on 16 countries, four international organizations, and the Vatican.

Countries and organizations covered by the Guide:
The Netherlands
Switzerland
Luxemburg
German
Belgium
Finland
France
Spain
Italy
Great Britain
Vatican City
Portugal
Denmark
Sweden
Norway
Austria
Greece
Italy
The United Nations
The League of Nations
The International Labour Organisation
The International Telecommunication Union
UNESCO

The New Guide to the Diplomatic Archives of Western Europe is a comprehensive, up-to-date tool for locating and using most efficiently the documents in the depositories of Western Europe (with Greece and Finland included). Besides its obvious utility for doing research in diplomatic and political history, the Guide is most useful in such fields as political and commercial history, biography, and organizational behavior. Some 22 historians and archivists collectively provide chapters on 16 countries, 4 international organizations, and the Vatican.

This first comprehensive bibliography of the life and work of colonial women helps to foster an historical understanding of the rights, privileges, and functions of women in today's society. The Syllabus, containing 1082 items, is organized to provide an inclusive picture of the colonial woman in all aspects of her life and work. It includes references giving insight into home life with its manifold problems and dangers, the evolution of the colonial woman's status as owned property to being an independent owner of property, the leadership she gave to the religious life of the colonies, the contributions she made to cultural life, her part in the developing political life, and the extent of her participation in economic life.

The Bibliography contains 765 books 309 magazine articles, and eight pictorial publications. To facilitate the study of individual women of note, the List of 104 Outstanding Women includes references.

The Aristotle Collection of the University of Pennsylvania Library owes its existence to Dr. Charles W. Burr, Professor in the University's Medical School and generous donor to the library. His gifts of books over a long period of years included any valuable Aristotle items and in 1932 he presented his own library to the University. A bequest at his death in 1944 established a fund which has enabled the library to purchase a number of important additions to the collection.

These books and manuscripts are a rich source for those interested in medieval and Renaissance scholarship. The very number of the early printed editions in this catalogue—over five hundred—attests to the importance that was attached to the study of Aristotle during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and even the seventeenth centuries. Medieval Latin translations of the texts of Aristotle continued to appear during the Renaissance. The twelfth-century translations of Guilelmus of Moerbeke can be noted in this catalogue as late as 1589; even when a contemporary translation was available and was used, it was not uncommon for the earlier version to be printed with it.

The list of commentators, translators, and editors of the Aristotelian tradition includes the names of many well-known humanists from all over the continent. These men, protagonists of the new learning, nevertheless concerned themselves with that same philosopher who so dominated the teachings of the medieval schools. Another indication of the Aristotelian influence is the great number of translations of his works into the vernacular. The German, Italian, and French versions in this collection, as well as in others, attest to the wide interest in his works in Europe.

Few aspect of medieval and Renaissance civilization were free from the influence of "The Philosopher" and this work is therefore a valuable adjunct to any study of the period. The collection, seemingly so strictly limited to one great figure, will prove useful in a great variety of scholarly pursuits.

A great deal can be learned about a given civilization through its literature. The living image of a people—acting and thinking, of themselves. and of the world as they see it—can only be apprehended by the creative productions of a nation's best minds. Thus students of Indian civilization and culture who cannot afford to overlook its literature will find in this book a way to approach the Indian spirit through the work of Indian authors.

Fiction in India, particularly the novel, is a product of Western influences. As a literary form, the novel, with its emphasis on character analysis and related plot, is not native to the Indian temperament. Nevertheless, during the last fifty years, India has produced a wealth of fine fiction : novels and short stories, sketches and satires. In this book, Dorothy M. Spencer has selected and annotated some three hundred items for the ethnographical and cultural material they can be made to yield. English translations, works written directly in English, and translations from the various regional dialects have been included—on the whole a rather sweeping cross-section of Indian literary creativity.

With the aid of Spencer's notes, the student can decide which of the works deal with specific attitudes and values that are of interest to him. The sociologist interested in institutions and interpersonal relations, in the beliefs and ideas regarding the Indian character held by the people themselves, the philosopher concerned with the Indian world-view, the anthropologist, and the political scientist will find an abundance of material in these pages to heighten his appreciation of Indian culture. The attitudes toward social institutions and fixed relationships, the family, the place of women as mothers and sisters, the caste-system—all the intricacies of a civilization's development can be revealed to the perceptive student.

Naturally enough, fiction in India has also dealt with political and social themes. In this connection, autobiographies and propagandistic or moralistic novels are most useful. Both have been included in this bibliography, as well as historical novels, a genre which, though it has recently fallen into disfavor, is one of the most fruitful sources for an investigation of the Indian past.

More than a comprehensive guide to Indian fiction and autobiography, this volume is also a fine introduction to Indian culture, suggesting and developing directions which a study of India may take. It will be helpful and important to all scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are concerned with understanding the people and way of life of an ancient land that has recently taken great strides into the modern era.

This book presents an analysis of the current state and the future needs of American studies of India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Afghanistan, and Nepal. Although most of the developmental goals set immediately after World War II by the scholars then working in South Asian area studies have been amply fulfilled, a new stocktaking and blueprint for the future was felt to be necessary. In addition to meeting this requirement, Resources for South Asian Area Studies treats the more general needs of the field and discusses the individual papers, which were read at a plenary conference held in New York early in 1961.

One of the purposes of this volume, then, is to survey the current resources and needs in the field of South Asian area studies, and this is a primary interest of the convener of the conference, the Association for Asian Studies' Committee on South Asia, whose chairman, Richard D. Lambert, edited this book. The other purpose is more specialized, and reflects the specific interest of the United States Office of Education, the sponsor of the conference. Under the National Defense Education Act this office is explicitly charged with the development of skills among Americans in the vernacular languages of the region.

A companion volume to this one, edited by W. Norman Brown and entitled Resources for South Asian Language Studies, concerns the development of linguistic material and personnel. The present volume is oriented more toward the integration of those materials into area studies proper; hence the discussion of this problem that runs through each of the papers.

The book should be of interest to all those concerned with the emergence from parochialism and the development of an international, particularly non-Western aspect of American higher education.

"I need an audience—-so watch out!" With these James T. Farrell announced his intention of becoming a writer. He was to realize this ambition in manifold ways through his prolificacy, versatility, and his achieved recognition as a formidable figure in American literature. The material contained in this book grew out of initial research for a critical study which disclosed the chaotic state of Farrell's literary affairs and the urgent need for a bibliography. The task was not to be an easy one, for many of Farrell's writings were printed in obscure publications both in the United States and abroad. Edgar M. Branch has ferreted out, producing his compilation with enthusiasm and accuracy.

This book is a definitive guide to Farrell's writings published in newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and books, from the time of his high­school days through 1957. It includes both the fiction (novels, short stories, one poem, and one play) and the nonfiction (essays, articles, statements, manifestoes, newspaper columns, etc.), and in many cases descriptions of these writing are appended when deemed necessary. As a further aid to students and researchers, Branch has listed many reprints and dates of writing for the individual short stories and has provided two appendices giving foreign editions of books and tape recordings of unpublished speeches. This detailed bibliography, the first on Farrell ever printed, is supplemented by a preface by Farrell and a foreword by the author.

Edgar Branch has directed his attention to the more inaccessible of Farrell's writings and to the clarification of the voluminous abundance of written material that Farrell has produced. Through this book it is possible to trace Farrell's fluctuating status as a writer, his shifting position among editors, critics, and readers. The data included other clues to the evolution and growth of his ideas and relationships with his contemporaries, providing insight into his changing political affiliations and the motivation and development of his fiction.

A Bibliography of ]ames T. Farrell's Writings will be a valuable practical aid to scholars and students of literature and Americana, for it makes available a scholarly compilation of the extensive list of writings by one of America's most distinguished and controversial contemporary writers.