Tom's Learning Notes

The Provincial Letters (French: Lettres provinciales) were published by Blaise Pascal from 1656 to 1657. Under the pseudonymous guise of Louis de Montalte, a Parisian writing to a correspondent in the country, he launched a blistering satirical attack on Jesuit theology. Although banned by the French Crown, the eighteen letters were widely read and influential.

The Provincial Letters at online book stores
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Free online texts
English translations
Internet Archive: The Provincial Letters, Pensees, Scientific Letters. The former translated by Thomas M'Crie. Great Books of the Western World edition. EPUB, MOBI, PDF and TXT formats.
University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): The Provincial Letters, translated by Thomas M'Crie. EPUB, MOBI and HTML formats.
Wikisource: The Provincial Letters, translated by Thomas M'Crie. HTML and other formats.
French texts
Wikisource: Les Provinciales. HTML and other formats.

A Journal of the Plague Year is a 1722 novel by Daniel Defoe, which purports to be an eyewitness account of the great plague which struck London in 1665. It contains much authentic detail based on extensive research. Its place between history and fiction has consequently been the subject of a longstanding and inconclusive debate.

A Journal of the Plague Year at online book stores
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Free online texts
Gutenberg: A Journal of the Plague Year. EPUB, HTML, MOBI and TXT formats.
Internet Archive: A Journal of the Plague Year, Everyman's Library edition. EPUB, MOBI, PDF and TXT formats.
University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): A Journal of the Plague Year. EPUB, MOBI and HTML formats.
Wikisource: A Journal of the Plague Year. Ongoing transcription project.

Other Resources
Librivox: A Journal of the Plague Year. Public domain audiobook.
London Fictions: A Journal of the Plague Year, review by Dermot Kavanagh.
Medical History: A Journal of the Plague Year, Oxford World Classics edition reviewed by Alice Ford-Smith.
Wikipedia: Daniel Defoe - A Journal of the Plague Year

Further reading at Tom's Learning Notes
Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe - Moll Flanders - two novels which also purport to be authentic first person accounts.
Samuel Pepys: Diary - an actual eyewitness account of the 1665 plague.
Bloom's Western Canon: A Journal of the Plague Year is included.

Robinson Crusoe is a 1719 novel by Daniel Defoe. Like several of Defoe's works, it purported to be a genuine autobiography, in this case that of an English seaman, shipwrecked for many years on a desert island off the coast of South America, who nevertheless manages to maintain a civilised existence with the help of a native servant, Friday.

The novel proved immediately and enduringly popular, inspiring a genre of castaway stories, sometimes known as Robinsonades. Modern critics have often interpreted Crusoe as representing an emergent economic individualism. 

Robinson Crusoe at online book shops
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Free online texts
Gutenberg: The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. EPUB, HTML, MOBI and TXT format.
Internet Archive: Robinson Crusoe. EPUB, MOBI, PDF and TXT formats.
University of Adelaide: The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. EPUB, HTML and MOBI formats.
Wikisource: Robinson Crusoe. HTML and other formats.

Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes, published in two volumes in 1605 and 16015. It is one of the most highly regarded novels ever written, and its satire of earlier prose romances influenced the realism of the developing form.

The title character is an elderly gentlemen of La Mancha who is driven out of his wits by his reading of popular chivalric romances, and embarks on a series of picarasque adventures, accompanied by the more worldly Sancho Panza. The work has been subjected to many interpretations. Some suggest that like the earlier picaresque genre, it reflects the breakdown of feudalism and the emergence of commercial society.

Don Quixote at online book stores
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Free online texts

English translations

Gutenberg: The History of Don Quixote, Part One | Part Two, translated by John Ormsby (1885). HTML, EPUB, MOBI and TXT formats.

Gutenberg: The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, translated by Peter Motteux. HTML, EPUB, MOBI and TXT formats.

Internet Archive: The Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote of La Mancha, translated by John Ormsby (1885). EPUB, TXT, MOBI (Kindle) and PDF formats.

University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): Don Quixote, translated by John Ormsby (1885), with illustrations by Gustav Doré. HTML, EPUB and MOBI (Kindle) formats.

Wikisource: English translation by John Ormsby. HTML and other formats.

Spanish texts

Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Don Qvixote [sic] de la Mancha. First Part. Second part. Edition of Rodolfo Schevill and Adolfo Bonilla. HTML format.

Centro Virtual Cervantes: Don Quijote de la Mancha. HTML format.

Wikisource: Spanish text. HTML and other formats.

The Faerie Queene is an epic poem by Edmund Spenser in six books, of which the first three were published in 1590, with the rest appearing in 1596. Spenser drew on Arthurian legend and contemporary Italian epic to create a poem celebrating the court of Elizabeth I, who appears in the form of the Faerie Queene herself, Gloriana, whose knights pursue a series of quests with strong allegorical elements.

The Faerie Queene at Amazon

Free online texts

Gutenberg: The Faerie Queene, Book I. HTML, EPUB, Kindle and TXT formats. See also this alternative edition.

Internet Archive: Spenser's Faerie Queene, illustrated by Walter Crane. George Allen (1895-97). EPUB, TXT, MOBI, PDF and other formats.

Internet Archive: The Faerie Queene, Vol. I | Vol. II. Clarendon Press (1909). EPUB, TXT, MOBI, PDF and other formats.

Internet Archive: The Faerie Queene, Vol. I | Vol II. Everyman's Library Edition (1910). EPUB, TXT, MOBI, PDF and other formats.

University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): The Faerie Queene. HTML, EPUB, TXT and Kindle formats.

Wikisource: The Faerie Queene - incomplete. HTML and other formats.

Paradise Lost is an epic poem by John Milton, originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a second edition in twelve books following in 1667.

It tells the story of Satan's fall from heaven and the temptation of Adam and Eve. Blake wrote of Milton that 'he was of the Devil's party without knowing it' because of his portrayal of Satan as a charismatic antihero. Many critics have seen an underlying tension between Milton's affirmation of divine authority against Satan's rebellion and his support for an English Commonwealth founded on rebellion against the Stuart monarchy.

Paradise Lost at Amazon: United States | Canada | United Kingdom | France | Germany | Spain | Italy

Free online texts

Dartmouth College: Paradise Lost. HTML format.

Gutenberg: Paradise Lost. HTML, EPUB, Kindle and TXT formats.

Internet Archive. English Minor Poems, Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, Areopagitica. Britannica Great Books edition. EPUB, TXT, MOBI and PDF formats.

University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): Paradise Lost. HTML, EPUB, TXT and Kindle formats.

Wikisource: Paradise Lost. Multiple editions. HTML and other formats.

Other Resources

Librivox: Paradise Lost | Paradise Lost (version 2) - public domain audiobooks.

Wikipedia: John Milton - Paradise Lost

The Great Conversation: Further reading at Tom's Learning Notes

Milton: Paradise Regained

The Bible: Genesis, Revelation.

Homer: The Iliad and the Odyssey.

Virgil: The Aeneid

Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queene.

John Aubrey: Brief Lives - includes a life of Milton.

Alexander Pope: The Rape of the Lock.

Samuel Johnson: Lives of the English Poets.

William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Defence of Poetry.

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein.

John Keats: Endymion.

Harold Bloom's Western Canon - Paradise Lost is included.

Areopagitica is a 1644 polemical essay by the poet John Milton arguing for freedom of the press. Written early in the English Civil War, at a moment when Parliament had broken the authority of Charles I's controls on publishing, it was unsuccessful in dissuading the dominant Presbyterian faction from instituting its own censorship. It nevertheless became a formative influence on later arguments for freedom of speech in the  liberal tradition.

Areopagitica at Amazon: United States | Canada | United Kingdom | France | Germany | Spain | Italy

Free online texts

Dartmouth College: Areopagitica. HTML format.

Gutenberg: Areopagitica. HTML, EPUB, Kindle and TXT formats.

Internet Archive. English Minor Poems, Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, Areopagitica. Britannica Great Books edition. EPUB, TXT, MOBI and PDF formats.

Internet Archive. Areopagitica. Clarendon (1894) with notes by John W. Hales. EPUB, TXT, MOBI and PDF formats.

Internet Archive: Essays Civil and Moral and The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon, Areopagitica and Tractate on Education by John Milton and Religio Medici by Thomas Brown. Harvard Classics, Vol 3. EPUB, TXT, MOBI and PDF formats.

University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): Areopagitica. PDF, EPUB, TXT and Kindle formats.

Wikisource: Areopagitica. HTML and other formats. See also Harvard Classics edition.

Other Resources

Librivox: Areopagitica | Areopagitica (version 2) - public domain audiobooks.

Wikipedia: John Milton - Areopagitica

The Great Conversation: Further reading at Tom's Learning Notes

Euripides: The Suppliants - quoted at the start of the text.

Isocrates: Areopagitikos - the inspiration for the title of Milton's work.

John Aubrey: Brief Lives - includes a life of Milton.

Harold Bloom's Western Canon: includes the Areopagitica.

The Brief Lives by John Aubrey (1626-1697) are a collection of short biographies of his contemporaries, chosen on eclectic grounds which allowed for the inclusion of personal friends as well as prominent figures from science, philosophy, the arts, politics and high society.

The Brief Lives have long been appreciated for the intimate tone, and personal insights based on interviews with the subjects' acquaintances.

The Brief Lives at Amazon: United States | Canada | United Kingdom | France | Germany | Spain | Italy

Free online texts

Gutenberg: Brief Lives Vol. I | Vol. II, edited Andrew Clarke (1898). HTML, EPUB, Kindle and TXT formats.

Internet Archive: Brief Lives Vol . I (Incomplete | Vol. II. PDF, EPUB, TXT and Kindle formats.

Other Resources

Librivox: Brief Lives Vol. I | Vol. II - public domain audiobooks.

Wikipedia: John Aubrey - Brief Lives

The Great Conversation: Further reading at Tom's Learning Notes

Harold Bloom's Western Canon: The Brief Lives are included.

Gulliver's Travels is a 1726 work by Jonathan Swift, now most often read in versions adapted for children, but originally a sharp satire of contemperary Europe.

Gulliver's successive encounters with the people of Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and with the Houyhnhnms, raise questions about the nature and influence of society that contrast, perhaps deliberately, with the individualism of Swift's contemporary, Daniel Defoe, in Robinson Crusoe.

Gulliver's Travels at Amazon: United States | Canada | United Kingdom | France | Germany | Spain | Italy

Free online texts

Gutenberg: Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World. HTML, EPUB, Kindle and TXT formats.

Internet Archive: Gullivers' Travels. EPUB, Kindle and PDF formats.

University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): Gullivers Travels. HTML, EPUB, and MOBI formats.

Wikisource: Gulliver's Travels

Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous is a 1713 philosophical work by George Berkeley, written as a dialogue in which the characters discuss the metaphysical ideas which Berkeley had previously propounded to some criticism in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge.

The two characters are given Greek names which reflect their respective commitments. Hylas is named after the Greek word for matter and takes a materialist position. Philonous, 'lover of mind', defends an idealist stance which is largely Berkeley's own.

Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous at Amazon: United States | Canada | United Kingdom | France | Germany | Spain | Italy

Free online texts

Early Modern Texts: Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, adapted and translated into modern English, by Jonathan Bennett. PDF format.

Gutenberg: Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. Multiple formats.

Internet Archive: Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1901). Multiple formats.

Wikisource: Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. HTML and other formats.