How to Form a Library, (2nd ed) by H. B. Wheatley. Published 1886.

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Donahoe’s Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886. Published 1886.

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Donahoe’s Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886. Published 1886.

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Cobwebs and Cables, by Hesba Stretton. Published ca. 1886.

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Old Doctor Sobersides, the minister of Pumpkinville, where I lived in my youth, was one of the metaphysical divines of the old school, and could cavil upon the ninth part of a hair about entities and quiddities, nominalism and realism, free-will and necessity, with which sort of learning he used to stuff his sermons and astound his learned hearers, the bumpkins. They never doubted that it was all true, but were apt to say with the old woman in Molière: “He speaks so well that I don’t understand him a bit.”

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My Lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I think my duty, my sentiments on your present awful situation. I have laid before you the ruin of your power, the disgrace of your reputation, the pollution of your discipline, the contamination of your morals, the complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, that overwhelm your sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the Constitution itself totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful danger, this multitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this unnatural war. We have been deceived and deluded too long. Let us now stop short. This is the crisis–the only crisis of time and situation, to give us a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated perseverance in folly, we slavishly echo the peremptory words this day presented to us, nothing can save this devoted country from complete and final ruin. We madly rush into multiplied miseries, and “confusion worse confounded.”

The Knights of the White Shield, by Edward A. Rand. This book has one of the most confusing titles ever. It also reads “Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play” on the title page, but I haven’t been able to find others in this series, and the book itself talks about the founding of a boys’ club. It’s your basic juvie Christian adventure novel. Temperance, boats, patriotism, etc. and good moral character!

Peck’s Compendium of Fun, by George W. Peck. Comprising the Choicest Gems of Wit, Humor, Sarcasm and Pathos of America’s Favorite Humorist. I want to write more on this one someday, but for now, know that Peck was (1) a newspaper editor, (2) the creator of Peck’s Bad Boy, (3) the mayor of Milwaukee, and (4) the governor of Wisconsin.