Frederick Jackson Turner on books about the West

America's finest historian of the frontier[1] took some time to write a book about books about the West. And he did it in 1915, so everything he listed is fair game for Google Books. If you don't hear from me in a while, you know where I'll be.

[1]: Consider than in 1620, the Western frontier began about 20 miles west of the Atlantic coast. Unless you're reading this from your beachhouse on the Atlantic, you're living in what was once the wild, wild West.

Guide to the study and reading of American history

Every day I'm freshly amazed that Google Books is free. Here's the 1912 Guide to the study and reading of American history by Edward Channing, Albert Bushnell Hart and Frederick Jackson "Frontier" Turner.

The courteous canal

sancrucensis, with an assist from Newman, finds an important distinction that Roger Scruton missed in his lecture The Face of the Earth. Since all Truth is One, you might say, his distinction also sheds surprising new light on Belloc's poem Courtesy.

In the name of the Bodleian

Another book of essays to be read, via the Laudator. This is by Augustine Birrell, whom we last met through the good graces of Roger Pearse.

Such is education

Here's a bit by Roger Pearse, our great commissioner of classical translations, from his engaging post "Why We Need Akkadian" - I've left the part about Akkadian for your enjoyment at his blog; I wish to excerpt this bit about a good book he once read:

I remember the last time I ever went punting at Oxford. I bought, in a now vanished bookshop in St. Clements, an old ‘Everyman’ volume to read. The cover had gone, and someone had recovered it with some brown paper. Written on the brown paper in felt-tip were the words, “A century of English essays”. But I took it with me, and read as we punted into the Cherwell, along the green-brown muddy river and under the trailing trees. I have it still. It introduced me to the essays of Augustine Birrell. These in turn led me to Dr. Johnson, to an appreciation even of Gibbon, whom I might otherwise have known only as a less-than-honest polemicist, and a score more. Such is education, and a university the opportunity to acquire it.

Speaking of Latin prepositions

Google Books has Samuel Butler's 1823 Praxis on Latin Prepositions, and the Key that he provided only upon application by mail in order to keep it out of the hands of students. Our Dr Butler is grandfather of the novelist Samuel Butler.

Latin prepositions illustrated

Finally, something that makes sense of the mess:

Pournelle and Mackenzie on preserving civilization

From scifi author Jerry Pournelle in the March 1983 number of Survive magazine:

Probably the most valuable book I own is MacKenzie's 10,000 Formulas. Published in 1868, it has 400 pages telling how to make everything known about at the time. The section on medicines is useful only for amusement, but MacKenzie shows how to butcher animals, smoke and preserve meat, make soap, gunpowder and fireworks, and how to brew beer–from choosing the barley and hops to malting the barley ("Throw the malt up into a heap as high as possible, where let it lie till it grows as hot as the hand can bear it, which usually happens in the space of about 30 hours"). Alas, nothing else like MacKenzie's book seems to be available.

Here's a link to the Google Books copy of Mackenzie, along with its magnificent subtitle:

Mackenzie's ten thousand receipts: in all the useful and domestic arts constituting a complete and practical library, relating to agriculture, angling, bees, bleaching, book-keeping, brewing, cotton culture, crocheting, carving, cholera, cooking, calico printing, confectionery, cements, chemical receipts, cosmetics, diseases, dairy, dentistry, dialysis, decalcomania, dyeing, distillation, enamelling, engraving, electro-plating, electrotyping, fish culture, farriery, food, flower gardening, fireworks, gas metres, gilding, glass, health, horsemanship, inks, jewellers' paste, knitting, knots, lithography, mercantile calculations, medicine, miscellaneous receipts, metallurgy, mezzotints, oil colors, oils, painting, perfumery, pastry, petroleum, pickling, poisons and antidotes, potichomania, proof-reading, pottery, preserving, photography, pyrotechnics, rural and domestic economy, sugar raising, silvering, scouring, silk and silk-worms, sorghum, tobacco culture, tanning, trees, telegraphing, varnishes, vegetable gardening, weights and measures, wines, etc., etc., being an entirely new edition carefully revised and re-written, and containing the improvements and discoveries up to last date of publication, January, 1867.

Project Gutenberg #7

• The Home Book of Verse, edited by Burton Egbert Stevenson
  • Volume 1
  • Volume 2
  • Volume 3
  • Volume 4

Also by Mr Stevenson: Poems of American History at Google.

Butler's Lives: August 31

• St Raymund Nonnatus, Confessor
• St Isabel, Virgin
• St Cuthburge, Queen, Virgin and Abbess
• St Aidan, or Aedan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Confessor

Butler's Lives: August 30

• St Rose of Lima, Virgin
• Saints Felix and Adauctus, Martyrs
• St Fiaker, Anchoret, Confessor
• St Pammachius, Confessor
• St Agilus, commonly called St Aile, Abbot

Butler's Lives: August 29

• The Decollation of St. John the Baptist
• St. Sabina, Martyr
• St. Sebbi, or Sebba, King and Confessor
• St. Merri, Abbot

Commentaries on the Psalms

The Psalm commentaries of John Mason Neale and Richard Frederick Littledale

• Volume 1, Preface
• Volume 1, Preface to 2nd edition
• Volume 2, Preface
• Dissertation 1: The Psalms as Employed in the Offices of the Church
• Dissertation 2: Primitive and Medieval Commentators on the Psalms
• Dissertation 3: The Mystical and Literal Interpretation of the Psalms
• Dissertation 4: Chronology of the Psalms
• Dissertation 5: The Psalms as Used in the Sacraments and Rites of the Church
• Index of Scripture references

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75
76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125
126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Butler's Lives: August 28

• St. Augustine, Bishop and Confessor, Doctor of the Church
• St. Hermes, Martyr
• St. Julian, Martyr

Butler's Lives: August 27

• St. Caesarius, Bishop and Confessor
• St. Poemen, or Pastor, Abbot
• St. Hugh of Lincoln, Martyr
• St. Joseph Calasanctius, Confessor
• St. Malrubius, Hermit and Martyr
• St. Syagrius, Bishop

Bill White: now in Google Books

I'm mentioned twice in Google Books!