Aircraft and Submarines The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day Uses of War's Newest Weapons
(This book was converted from its physical edition to the ...)
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
(Originally published in 1913 as a portion of the author’s...)
Originally published in 1913 as a portion of the author’s larger “Notable Women in History,” this Kindle edition, equivalent in length to a physical book of approximately 16 pages, describes the life of Scottish queen Mary Stuart, better known as Mary, Queen of Scots.
Includes supplemental material:
• A Brief Summary of the Life of Mary, Queen of Scots
• About Mary’s Father (James V), Third Husband (Bothwell), and Son (James VI)
Sample passage:
At first the news of the completed murder was kept from Mary. When she heard it, being herself no whit a coward, she said: “Farewell, tears! We must now think of revenge!”
Revenge, or what seemed much like it, came slowly but remorselessly. A seeming reconciliation took place between Mary and her husband, though he continued to demand the crown matrimonial and she to refuse it. Some two years after the Rizzio tragedy Darnley was lying ill in a wing of one of the royal residences called Kirk o’ Field, when a sudden and mysterious explosion of gunpowder blew the stone edifice to pieces and its bedridden tenant out into the fields, where his body was found. The body showed no mutilation nor powder stains. History fails to show any direct participation of Mary in the affair, but the famous Earl of Bothwell, who had become her favorite and prime adviser, was certainly deeply concerned. A pretended abduction by Bothwell’s men was followed by her marriage to the abductor three weeks after he divorced his wife.
This was too much for the Scottish lords, long discontented and ever stirred to sedition by agents of Queen Elizabeth. They rose in organized revolt and besieged Bothwell’s castle, whence the earl escaped by night, and Mary, in a suit of boy’s clothing, a day or two later. Hastily mustering a royal army the two at first thought to give battle to the lords, but finding themselves outnumbered and outgeneraled, Bothwell fled and Mary surrendered.
About the author:
Willis John Abbot (1863–1934) was an American author and journalist who wrote for the “New York Journal American” and was the editor of the “Christian Science Monitor.” Other works include “Naval History of the United States” and “Pictorial History of the World War.”
The Nations At War. A Current History. Illustrated by Many Plates in Full Color, Photographs from Private Sources, Maps, Charts, and Diagrams
(I own a copy of the 1917 edition - published in the year ...)
I own a copy of the 1917 edition - published in the year that the U.S.A. joined the Allied Powers against Germany and Austria-Hungary - which includes a good number of stories and pictures which followed the publication of the 1914 edition - published in the very first year of "The Great War". I haven't seen the 1914 edition but would expect it to be a lot shorter and somewhat less interesting than my 1917 version. The format of this book, published in America with a surprisingly balanced coverage of the initially European war, resembles "Harpers" or one of the other "current affairs" magazines of that era. The photographs are generally quite good, the art is very competent and the text, bolstered with excellent maps, gives even a modern reader a really good grasp of what was going on in those now-distant war years... blow by blow, as in a good newspaper. If one is interested in the Great War - and it is arguably the trauma which murdered the 19th Century's boundless optimism and the glittering fantasies of European Empires and "Progress", sinking the whole world into the horrors and cynicism of the rest of the 20th Century and beyond - this is a great introduction. Read it alongside some serious history like Tuchman's "The Guns of August" or some serious fiction like Solzhenitsyn's "August 1914". This book is worth five stars, if only to put human faces on those who volunteered cheerfully and marched singing into battle, many with the very finest of motives and intentions, and came back - if they did at all - shattered physically, mentally and/or morally. We are still dealing with the chaotic world that was born in that time. (Amazon customer)
Aircraft and Submarines The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day Uses of War's Newest Weapons
(This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The c...)
This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide. At tredition we believe that a great book never goes out of style. Several mostly non-profit literature projects provide content to tredition. To support their good work, tredition donates a portion of the proceeds from each sold copy. As a reader of a TREDITION CLASSICS book, you support our mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion.
Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose ... by Willis J. Abbot ... Water-Colors by E. J. Read and Gordon Grant; Profusely Illustrated by over 600 Unique and Attractive Photographs Taken Expressly for This Book by Our Special Staff
Willis John Abbot was an American journalist. He was a prolific author of war, army, navy, marine corps and merchant marine books.
Background
Willis John Abbot was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States on March 16, 1863, the only child of Waldo Abbot, also a native of New Haven, and his wife, Julia Holmes of Atlanta, Georgia. His family name was spelled both with and without the second "t. "
A descendant of Maurice, younger brother of George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury from 1610 to 1633, he was a grandson of John Stevens Cabot Abbott, grand-nephew of Jacob Abbott, and cousin of Lyman Abbott.
Willis was only six months old when his father, then collector of the port at Key West, Florida, died of yellow fever. His mother, who became a practising physician, married Sabin Smith, with whom she and the boy removed to Chicago when the latter was thirteen.
Education
Abbot studied in the "literary department" of the University of Michigan from 1881 to 1883 and took a law degree there in 1884.
Career
Abbot began his career as a reporter on the Times-Democrat for a livelihood in New Orleans. Here he came into close association with Lafcadio Hearn, a member of the same staff. As New Orleans correspondent of the New York World he attempted, in youthful enthusiasm, to persuade Jefferson Davis in 1885 to appraise General U. S. Grant, then nearing death. Afterward, he learned that several distinguished journalists had previously declined the impossible and embarrassing assignment.
Ambitious to enter metropolitan journalism, Abbot in 1886 became a reporter on the New York Tribune, where he witnessed the first practical test of the linotype. Asked by Dodd, Mead & Company to write a popular history of the navy in the Civil War, he produced at this time Blue Jackets of '61, the first of his many "drum-and-trumpet" books for juveniles. After a year on the Tribune, he was drawn by a land boom to Kansas City, Missouri, as part owner of the Kansas City Evening News, whose unsuccessful competition with the Kansas City Star of William Rockhill Nelson, proved, as Abbot said, "a most expensive school of journalism. " On the collapse of this venture, he returned to Chicago in 1889 and became editorial writer on the Chicago Evening Mail, evening edition Chicago Times. After Carter H. Harrison bought the latter, Abbot was for a brief period (1892-1893) its managing editor. In 1895 he published Carter Henry Harrison: A Memoir.
Meantime, attracted to the rising William Randolph Hearst, he became editorial page editor of Hearst's New York Journal shortly before the first Bryan-McKinley campaign. Soon he was so engrossed in the burning politics of the day that he served as chairman of the campaign of his friend, Henry George, for mayor of New York in 1897. He returned to the "yellow journalism" of the Spanish-American War era in the Journal office, but again entered politics as manager of the Democratic national press bureau for the 1900 campaign, a much relished work which he repeated in 1908. Successively he was editor and part owner of the Battle Creek, Michigan, Pilgrim, a monthly magazine (1900-1903), chief editorial writer of Hearst's New York American (1905-1907, 1912-1916), special political writer for the Chicago Tribune (1908), syndicate Washington correspondent (1909-1912), a writing editor of the New York Sun (1916-1917), and of the Chicago American (1917), Vigorously pro-Ally, he withdrew from the American when it treated the sinking of the Lusitania as a legitimate military incident.
After a period of Washington residence during which he was a correspondent for several interior papers, Collier's, and the London Times and a political writer for the Washington Herald, he was called to the Christian Science Monitor in 1921. The Monitor was then involved in prolonged litigation between the trustees of the Christian Science Publishing Society and the church's board of directors, a situation which had cost the paper heavily in circulation and advertising. Abbot was the Monitor's editor until 1927, when he became a member of its editorial board and contributing editor, posts he held at his death. He was happier than ever before in the unique journalism of the Monitor and had a major part in its rebuilding. He took particular satisfaction in its uncompromising fight against repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.
Working closely with Lord Lothian and other peace advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, he devoted much time from 1922 to 1925 to promoting the Monitor peace plan. This plan, which proposed a constitutional amendment subjecting property to conscription for war along with the persons of citizens, was formally introduced in both branches of Congress, where hearings on it were held.
Busy as he was in daily newspaper work, Abbot wrote some two dozen books, the most popular of which was Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose (1914). Based on an extended stay in the isthmus at the height of the canal's construction, it enjoyed a newspaper coupon sale of more than a million copies. The Blue Jackets series and other military and naval books he finally concluded probably were harmful to international peace. His Watching the World Go By (1933) recounts his career, emphasizing especially newspaper personalities and practices, and political affairs and national party conventions, twenty-one of which he observed, the first as a page in 1880. It also describes his foreign travels on which he gathered data on peace issues, reforestation, and many other public matters.
Abbot's interest in international adjudication led him to visit the League of Nations frequently. He was also a leader in journalistic organizations; as an official of the American Congress of Journalists and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, he endeavored to promote higher ethical standards in the press. The theme of his Paul Block lecture at Yale in 1934 was the menace of provocative news in international affairs.
He died from an undiagnosed cause in his seventy-second year in his Brookline, Massachussets, home. His body was cremated and the ashes were placed in Mount Auburn cemetery, Cambridge.
Achievements
Abbot held responsible positions in the two extremes of sensationalism and idealism in American journalism. He was a prolific author, mostly notable for his works "The Naval History of the United States", "The Story of Our Navy for Young Americans", "The Nations at War" and "Soldiers of the Sea: The Story of the United States Marine Corps. "
For international activities he was decorated by Greece and Rumania.
Abbot was an active member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the League to Enforce Peace, Institute of Pacific Relations, English-Speaking Union, World Peace Foundation, Foreign Policy Association, Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Chamber of Commerce.
Personality
Through much of life he wore a mustache and pointed beard which, particularly after he turned gray, added to a distinguished appearance.
Connections
Abbot married in 1887 Marie Mack of Ann Arbor, Michigan, by whom he had a son, Waldo. She died in 1903. In 1905 he married Elsie Verona Maples of Detroit, who survived him without issue.
