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CONTENTSMOTIVE PROLOGUE PART I THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES AIR THEIR GRIEVANCES PART II THE PRINCIPLES, HAVING SETTLED THEIR DIFFERENCES, FINISH THEPART III THE GREAT TEST PART IV CROSS COUNTRY CHAPTER I FLIGHT CHAPTER II STABILITY AND CONTROL CHAPTER III RIGGING CHAPTER IV THE PROPELLER, OR "AIR-SCREW" CHAPTER V MAINTENANCE GLOSSARY

This collection of ancient folklore from Hawaii has a good mixture of familiar and unfamiliar elements. Like many other mythologies, it deals with gods and goddesses, heroes and villains, magic fruit and magical transformations, visits to the realm of the dead and talking animals. Unlike many other mythologies, it has a very Hawaiian flavor. Sharks and turtles feature among the talking animals, with the sharks being rather helpful and the turtles opposing humans. Local fruit and local fish play roles in various tales. A lot of the nature mythology is based on the ocean and the volcanoes, making the stories interesting and very far from the stuff of the Grimm Brothers.Most of the stories are good, with an occasional rambling, pointless tale thrown in. The Hawaiian language is very pleasant-sounding even if it looks over-voweled to the eye.Recommended. (Joseph R.)About the author:William Drake Westervelt (December 26, 1849 - March 9, 1939) was the author of several books and magazines on Hawaiian history and legends. He drew upon the collections of David Malo, Samuel Kamakau, and Abraham Fornander to popularize Hawaiian folklore in his Legends of Maui (1910), Legends of Old Honolulu (1915), Legends of Gods and Ghost-Gods (1915), Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (1916) and Hawaiian Historical Legends (1923).Rev. William D. Westervelt was born in Oberlin, Ohio. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1871 with a B.A. degree, and from Oberlin Theological Seminary in 1874 with a B.D. degree. Pastor of churches in Cleveland, Ohio and Colorado, he settled in Hawaii in 1899, marrying a missionary descendant, Caroline Dickinson Castle (1859-1941). After the Hawaiian Historical Society was re-formed, he served as the Corresponding Secretary starting in 1908. He would later serve as treasurer and president.Westervelt's interest in Hawaiian mythology was an avocation that led to numerous magazine and newspaper articles, many reprinted in his several collections. He is noted as one of Hawaii's foremost authorities on island folklore in the English language. His anthologies of Hawaiian myths, legends and folk tales are considered among the best of the English versions of a Hawaiian view of the sacred and profane.Oberlin College bestowed an honorary Doctor of Divinity on Westervelt in 1926. He died at his Waikiki home in March 1939. (wikipedia.org)

In Damn! A Book of Calumny, H.L. Mencken gives his opinion on a wide variety of subjects ranging from William Jennings Bryan, through Classical Music, to Zoos. I am a huge fan of Mencken's hilarious, bombastic, and sesquipedalian style. He is the quintessential American cynic and it's a lot of fun to watch him smash every sacred cow he can get his hands on. The fact that I disagree with his opinions much of the time does nothing to dampen my enjoyment of reading him. To understand the American mind in the 3 decades before WWII, it's essential to read him. (Noah Goats)About the author:Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial", also gained him attention.As a scholar, Mencken is known for The American Language, a multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States. As an admirer of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he was an outspoken opponent of organized religion, theism, and representative democracy, the last of which he viewed as a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors. Mencken was a supporter of scientific progress and was critical of osteopathy and chiropractic. He was also an open critic of economics.Mencken opposed the American entry into World War I and World War II. Some of the opinions in his private diary entries have been described by some researchers as racist and anti-Semitic, although this characterization has been disputed. Larry S. Gibson argued that Mencken's views on race changed significantly between his early and later writings, and that it was more accurate to describe Mencken as elitist than racist. He seemed to show a genuine enthusiasm for militarism but never in its American form. "War is a good thing", he wrote, "because it is honest, it admits the central fact of human nature.... A nation too long at peace becomes a sort of gigantic old maid".His longtime home in the Union Square neighborhood of West Baltimore was turned into a city museum, the H. L. Mencken House. His papers were distributed among various city and university libraries, with the largest collection held in the Mencken Room at the central branch of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library. (wikipedia.org)

John Bunyan (baptised November 30, 1628 - August 31, 1688) was an English writer and Puritan preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress. In addition to The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan wrote nearly sixty titles, many of them expanded sermons.Bunyan came from the village of Elstow, near Bedford. He had some schooling and at the age of sixteen joined the Parliamentary Army during the first stage of the English Civil War. After three years in the army he returned to Elstow and took up the trade of tinker, which he had learned from his father. He became interested in religion after his marriage, attending first the parish church and then joining the Bedford Meeting, a nonconformist group in Bedford, and becoming a preacher. After the restoration of the monarch, when the freedom of nonconformists was curtailed, Bunyan was arrested and spent the next twelve years in jail as he refused to give up preaching. During this time he wrote a spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and began work on his most famous book, The Pilgrim's Progress, which was not published until some years after his release.Bunyan's later years, in spite of another shorter term of imprisonment, were spent in relative comfort as a popular author and preacher, and pastor of the Bedford Meeting. He died aged 59 after falling ill on a journey to London and is buried in Bunhill Fields. The Pilgrim's Progress became one of the most published books in the English language; 1,300 editions having been printed by 1938, 250 years after the author's death.He is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the United States Episcopal Church on 29 August. Some other churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the Anglican Church of Australia, honour him on the day of his death (31 August). (wikipedia.org)

"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their liquor and falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains. He awakes 20 years later to a very changed world, having missed the American Revolution.The concept is ancient, including the 70 year nap by Choni HaMeA-Gail.Irving, inspired by a conversation on nostalgia with his American expatriate brother-in-law, wrote his story while temporarily living in Birmingham, England. It was published in his collection, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. While the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains near where Irving later took up residence, he admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills." The name Rip Van Winkle has been used to nameinfrastructure (Rip Van Winkle Bridge),consumer goods (Old Rip Van Winkle whiskey) andMusic: American composer George Whitefield Chadwick wrote a concert overture entitled Rip Van Winkle in 1879, when he was a student in Leipzig.Video games: The 1990 video game Super Mario World features an enemy known as "Rip Van Fish" which constantly sleeps unless disturbed.Television:In the 1961 The Twilight Zone episode "The Rip Van Winkle Caper", four gold thieves place themselves in suspended animation for 100 years in order to escape the law and, upon revival, spend their stolen fortune with impunity.In the 1963 The Twilight Zone episode "In His Image", Rip Van Winkle is mentioned after a man realizes his hometown has greatly changed in supposedly one week.In the 1992 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics", 147-year-old Captain Montgomery Scott is revived after 75 years in a transport buffer.In the 1994 film Star Trek Generations, 138-year-old Admiral James T. Kirk comes back to life after being "suspended" in a Nexus for 78 years.In the BBC television show Doctor Who, the tenth episode of the ninth series (titled "Sleep no More") involves a machine called Morpheus which can condense a full night's worth of sleep into mere minutes. People who refuse to use Morpheus are colloquially called "Rips", referencing Rip van Winkle. (wikipedia.org)

PREFACEThe want of an interesting work on Greek and Roman mythology, suitable for the requirements of both boys and girls, has long been recognized by the principals of our advanced schools. The study of the classics themselves, even where the attainments of the pupil have rendered this feasible, has not been found altogether successful in giving to the student a clear and succinct idea of the religious beliefs of the ancients, and it has been suggested that a work which would so deal with the subject as to render it at once interesting and instructive would be hailed as a valuable introduction to the study of classic authors, and would be found to assist materially the labours of both master and pupil.In endeavouring to supply this want I have sought to place before the reader a lifelike picture of the deities of classical times as they were conceived and worshipped by the ancients themselves, and thereby to awaken in the minds of young students a desire to become more intimately acquainted with the noble productions of classical antiquity.It has been my aim to render the Legends, which form the second portion of the work, a picture, as it were, of old Greek life; its customs, its superstitions, and its princely hospitalities, for which reason they are given at somewhat greater length than is usual in works of the kind.In a chapter devoted to the purpose some interesting particulars have been collected respecting the public worship of the ancient Greeks and Romans (more especially of the former), to which is subjoined an account of their principal festivals.I may add that no pains have been spared in order that, without passing over details the omission of which would have marred the completeness of the work, not a single passage should be found which could possibly offend the most scrupulous delicacy; and also that I have purposely treated the subject with that reverence which I consider due to every religious system, however erroneous.It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the importance of the study of Mythology: our poems, our novels, and even our daily journals teem with classical allusions; nor can a visit to our art galleries and museums be fully enjoyed without something more than a mere superficial knowledge of a subject which has in all ages inspired painters, sculptors, and poets. It therefore only remains for me to express a hope that my little work may prove useful, not only to teachers and scholars, but also to a large class of general readers, who, in whiling away a leisure hour, may derive some pleasure and profit from its perusal.E. M. BERENS

PREFACEThe want of an interesting work on Greek and Roman mythology, suitable for the requirements of both boys and girls, has long been recognized by the principals of our advanced schools. The study of the classics themselves, even where the attainments of the pupil have rendered this feasible, has not been found altogether successful in giving to the student a clear and succinct idea of the religious beliefs of the ancients, and it has been suggested that a work which would so deal with the subject as to render it at once interesting and instructive would be hailed as a valuable introduction to the study of classic authors, and would be found to assist materially the labours of both master and pupil.In endeavouring to supply this want I have sought to place before the reader a lifelike picture of the deities of classical times as they were conceived and worshipped by the ancients themselves, and thereby to awaken in the minds of young students a desire to become more intimately acquainted with the noble productions of classical antiquity.It has been my aim to render the Legends, which form the second portion of the work, a picture, as it were, of old Greek life; its customs, its superstitions, and its princely hospitalities, for which reason they are given at somewhat greater length than is usual in works of the kind.In a chapter devoted to the purpose some interesting particulars have been collected respecting the public worship of the ancient Greeks and Romans (more especially of the former), to which is subjoined an account of their principal festivals.I may add that no pains have been spared in order that, without passing over details the omission of which would have marred the completeness of the work, not a single passage should be found which could possibly offend the most scrupulous delicacy; and also that I have purposely treated the subject with that reverence which I consider due to every religious system, however erroneous.It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the importance of the study of Mythology: our poems, our novels, and even our daily journals teem with classical allusions; nor can a visit to our art galleries and museums be fully enjoyed without something more than a mere superficial knowledge of a subject which has in all ages inspired painters, sculptors, and poets. It therefore only remains for me to express a hope that my little work may prove useful, not only to teachers and scholars, but also to a large class of general readers, who, in whiling away a leisure hour, may derive some pleasure and profit from its perusal.E. M. BERENS

"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a 28,000 word essay by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, surveying the development and achievements of horror fiction as the field stood in the 1920s and 30s. The essay was researched and written between November 1925 and May 1927, first published in August 1927, and then revised and expanded during 1933-1934. Lovecraft's essay ranges widely, but he first examines the beginnings of weird fiction in the early gothic novel. As a guide for what to read in the early gothic he relied partly on Edith Birkhead's 1921 historical survey The Tale of Terror, and he was also able to draw on the expertise of the great many experts and collectors in his circle. The bulk of the essay was written in New York City giving Lovecraft easy access to the resources of the city's great public libraries and also to the collections of his friends, and thus he was able to read widely and obtain obscure and rare works. His survey then proceeds to outline the development of the supernatural and the weird in the work of major writers such as Ambrose Bierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft names as the four "modern masters" of horror: Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James, and Arthur Machen. In addition to these masters, Lovecraft attempts to make the essay an encompassing survey, and thus he mentions or notes many others in passing. (wikipedia.org)About the author:Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 - March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird and horror fiction, who is known for his creation of what became the Cthulhu Mythos.Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft spent most of his life in New England. He was born into affluence, but his family's wealth dissipated soon after the death of his grandfather. In 1913, he wrote a critical letter to a pulp magazine that ultimately led to his involvement in pulp fiction. During the interwar period, he wrote and published stories that focused on his interpretation of humanity's place in the universe. In his view, humanity was an unimportant part of an uncaring cosmos that could be swept away at any moment. These stories also included fantastic elements that represented the perceived fragility of anthropocentrism.Lovecraft was at the center of a wider body of authors known as "The Lovecraft Circle." This group wrote stories that frequently shared details among them. He was also a prolific letter writer. He maintained a correspondence with several different authors and literary proteges. According to some estimates, he wrote approximately 100,000 letters over the course of his life. In these letters, he discussed his worldview and his daily life, and tutored younger authors, such as August Derleth, Donald Wandrei, and Robert Bloch.Throughout his adult life, Lovecraft was never able to support himself from earnings as an author and editor. He was virtually unknown during his lifetime and was almost exclusively published in pulp magazines before he died in poverty at the age of 46, but is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors of supernatural horror fiction. Among his most celebrated tales are "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Rats in the Walls", At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time. His writings form the basis of the Cthulhu Mythos, which has inspired a large body of pastiches across several mediums drawing on Lovecraft's characters, setting and themes, constituting a wider subgenre known as Lovecraftian horror. (wikipedia.org)