Short Nonfiction Collection Vol. 005

This is a cabinet of curiosities from the historic record, ten voices speaking across more than a century of American and European life. Here Lincoln grapples with emancipation and the burdens of leadership in his Second Inaugural Address. Epicurus distills his philosophy into bracing axioms. John Burroughs offers the quiet reverie of nature writing. Joseph Smith lays out the foundations of a faith. The New York Times reports from 1817 on the capture of Vimy Ridge, while Vanity Fair profiles the 1921 flapper as a new social species. A government report on railway gauges sits beside Alice Meynell's meditation on the rhythm of existence. The collection spans speeches, essays, journalism and polemic, unified only by the curiosity of its readers who assembled it. For anyone who delights in primary sources and the raw texture of historical thinking, these are fragments worth holding.