Gandhi: 'Non-Violence Is the First Article of My Faith'

In the first half of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi was one of the leaders of India’s struggle to gain independence from Britain. To achieve this goal, he advocated a policy of nonviolent noncooperation with Britain’s systems and laws. In 1922 the British government arrested Gandhi for his role in the civil disobedience that was sweeping India. Gandhi pleaded guilty in Ahmadābād on March 23 but stated that his acts against the unjust legal authority were the highest duty of a citizen. His statement to the court follows.

David Copperfield

Charles John Huffam Dickens - Published 1850

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

The most popular Victorian author in Great Britain and the United States, Charles Dickens was both gifted humorist and critic of the social evils of his time. His characters are frequently eccentric, almost caricatures. They change very little or not at all in the course of the narrative, but they are nonetheless memorable. For example, Mr. Micawber is one of the outstanding characters in David Copperfield, and remains his improvident, amiable self all through the novel until he goes to Australia. Yet he is a comic character almost in the same league as Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff.

Great Expectations

Charles John Huffam Dickens - Published 1861

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles John Huffam Dickens was born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England. He was the son of John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and Elizabeth (Barrow) Dickens. Young Dickens was taught at home by his mother, and attended a Dame School (a school in which the rudiments of reading and writing were taught by a woman in her own home) at Chatham for a short time, and Wellington Academy in London. Later, he further educated himself by reading widely in the British Museum. Dickens’s father was incompetent at managing money, and was eventually sent to debtor’s prison.

Oliver Twist

Charles John Huffam Dickens - Published 1837-1839

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles John Huffham Dickens was born in Portsea, on England's southern coast, on February 7, 1812. The Dickens family moved several times during his youth, and the boy attended several schools, received instruction from his mother, and read voraciously. In 1824 Dickens's father, John, a middle-class naval pay clerk, was imprisoned for debt. Two weeks before this imprisonment, young Dickens was sent to work in a blacking warehouse pasting labels on bottles of boot polish. He lived alone in rented lodgings while the rest of his family moved into prison with his father, a common practice at

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles John Huffam Dickens - Published 1859

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles John Huffam Dickens was born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, on England's southern coast. John Dickens, Charles's father, was a respectable, middle-class naval pay clerk. His family moved several times during Charles's youth, and the boy attended several schools, received instruction from his mother, and read voraciously. John Dickens received a reasonable salary, but he always spent more than he made. In 1824 he was imprisoned for debt. Two weeks before his father's imprisonment, young Charles was sent to work in a blacking warehouse, pasting labels on bottles of boot polish.

Urn Burial

Robert Westall - Published 1987

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Tynemouth, Northumberland in the north of England, on October 7, 1929, Robert Westall had a happy, secure childhood. His father, the foreman-engineer of a gasworks and an enormously competent human being, was the major formative influence on his life and Westall wrote about him with affection in his first novel, The Machine-Gunners and its sequel Fathom Five. Graduating from Durham University with honors and a degree in fine art in 1953, Westall spent two years in the military before entering Slade School, University of London, and receiving a diploma in fine art in 1957. That same year he

Slot Machine

Chris Lynch - Published 1995

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Lynch was the fifth of seven children raised in the Jamaica Plains neighborhood of Boston by Edward Lynch, a bus driver, and his wife Dorothy O’Brien Lynch, who worked as a receptionist. Lynch’s father died when he was five, and he recalls that his mother “did a good job of covering it up, but things were pretty lean back then.” Lynch attended Catholic schools on the primary and secondary level and while he describes himself as not “what you’d call bookish,” he enjoyed belonging to a Dr. Seuss Book Club because he liked getting

Roller Skates

Ruth Sawyer - Published 1936

I  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ruth Sawyer, the youngest of five children, was born on August 5, 1880, in Boston, Massachusetts. The only daughter of Timothy and Ethalinda Sawyer, she attended Miss Brackett's Private School in New York City and then, in 1888, went on to the Garland Kindergarten Normal School. Upon graduation she accepted a position in Cuba demonstrating the art of storytelling to teachers setting up a kindergarten for orphans. Her work in Cuba led to a scholarship to Columbia University, where she received a