The Boys' Book of Submarines

A. Frederick Collins and Virgil D. Collins - The Boys' Book of Submarines (1917)

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A look at submarines for early 20th century boys, back when nobody thought twice about giving them instructions on building a model sub that involved sawing, extensive soldering and creating an electrical motor.  The bulk of the book, though, focuses on how actual subs operate from ballast to torpedoes to signalling methods to combat tactics.

Archie Frederick Collins (1869-1952) was an electrical engineer and prolific author on popular science topics, especially radio.  Titles include The Radio Amateur's Handbook (1922) and Experimental Television (1932).  He was jailed for mail fraud and wrote The Boys' Book of Submarines with his son Virgil Dewey shortly after release.

The Children's Book of Thanksgiving Stories

Asa Don Dickinson (ed) - The Children's Book of Thanksgiving Stories (1915)

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Just what the title says - stories for kids.  I haven't read it but that turkey image below has him remaking on his own wishbone - in the actual story he's a ghost who takes the child to a valley where wishbones stick out of the ground "like little croquet hoops" and other turkey ghosts place him in judgement.  Perhaps the next book was How to Get Your Child to Sleep After Hearing Frightening Thanksgiving Stories.

Dickinson (1876-1960) was an American librarian who studied at Columbia and worked at various places until invited to Punjab University in Lahore.  There he organized and expanded its library, a task he documented in Punjab Library Primer (1916).  He wrote other anthologies on Christmas and patriotism as well as guides to reading, a work on Tarkington and a study of the Kaiser.

A Time-Analysis of the Plots of Shakspere's Plays

P. A. Daniel - A Time-Analysis of the Plots of Shakspere's Plays (1879)

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Ever wonder how long the stories in each of Shakespeare's plays lasted?  Me neither but here's a breakdown with descriptions of how it was determined, though it should be noted that he's focusing on what is presented on stage and not the gaps between scenes (which is years in some instances).  The events in As You Like It, for instance, took 10 days starting with the Duke's quarrel and ending with his restoration.  Hamlet is 7 days from the first guard scene to the assorted deaths at the end though he admits there are some doubtful gaps in the story.  Some of the times seem short - he gives 8 days to The Winter's Tale, 10 to Coriolanus and 14 to Pericles.

Peter Augustin Daniel was a Shakespeare editor and scholar.  He seems to have been a friend of George Meredith. Oddly I can find no dates or more specific information other than a book calling him a "relatively unknown figure" (Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: Volume 30, p397).

The Natural History of Parrots

Prideaux John Selby - The Natural History of Parrots (1836)

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A catalog of parrot types for early 19th century naturalists.  It's still a bit technical (unless you know what culmen and tomia are) but as you'd expect from that period is well-written and full of nice little trivia.  The Alexandrine Ring-Parrakeet, for instance, was the only type known to the ancient Greeks - the name gives the reason.  The Festive Parrot is easily tamed and can imitate human speech while the Red and Blue Maccaw is neither.  The book starts with a brief biography of naturalist Thomas Bewick, apparently because it's a volume in a series and this just seemed a convenient spot to place it.

Since Prideaux John Selby (1788-1867) is best known for Illustrations of British Ornithology it's probably redundant to say he was a British artist and ornithologist.  He took painting lessons from Audubon who named the Selby's Flycatcher after him.  (Audubon wrote, "I wish I could see John to tell him to draw all he can, for his and my sake."  The Audubon Reader, p180)

Rust, Smut, Mildew & Mould

M.C. Cooke - Rust, Smut, Mildew & Mould: An Introduction to the Study of Microscopic Fungi (1872)

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Microscopic fungi enthusiasts, here you go!  Not as many illustrations as you might hope but the text is as readable as any 19th century naturalist with the book skewing more scientific than literary.

Mordecai Cubitt Cooke (1825-1914) was a British botanist with a long list of publications, chiefly on fungi but branching out to ferns, wild flowers, wasps, reptiles and other topics.  His 1860 book The Seven Sisters of Sleep: A Popular History of the Seven Prevailing Narcotics (Hathi Trust) was reprinted in 1997 with the new subtitle "The Celebrated Drug Classic".   A biography appeared in 1987 by Mary P. English.

Guide to Medieval Sources

Bodleian History Faculty Library - Guide to Medieval Sources (2015)

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If you need to do any research in primary medieval documents or need reference material to navigate them this free text might help.  It covers physical and digital resources ranging from compilations to dictionaries and though many are linked to Oxford portals (it is intended for their use after all) at least it would give you an idea what to look for.  Clavis patristica pseudepigraphorum medii aeui, here I come!  (Nah, not really - I don't have enough interest in the Church fathers to get into their pseudographia (unless any of it turns out to be as weird as the Augustan History) though I'm glad something like this exists - and that books published in the 1990s have a Latin title they didn't really need.)

Greek hero cults and ideas of immortality

Lewis Richard Farnell - Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality (1921)

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A supplement to Farnell's three volume Cults of the Greek States about what its title says though focusing more on the religious aspect than the literary stories most of us know better.  Even though the author claims "a large part of this material turns out to be merely barren, mere names about which nothing positive, nothing that concerns religion or history, can be said" I think it's fascinating even if only from a sort of antiquarian view where mere names have their own appeal.  (Though I'm saying this without having read the whole book.)

Lewis Richard Farnell (1856-1934) was a classicist at Exeter College in Oxford.  He supported Tolkien's transition as a student into the English Honours School (Zaleski's The Fellowship p61).  In addition to many books on classical subjects, Farnell wrote a 1934 memoir An Oxonian Looks Back and a brief account of his youthful travels An Englishman's Adventures on German Rivers (1891), neither of which appears to be digitized.  Part of his work is examined in Jan N. Bremmer and Andrew Erskine's The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations (2010).  According to Kathy Martin's Farnell Teddy Bears (2010) this Farnell may have had a distant relation to the toy but I couldn't quite figure out the connection. (See page 39.)