From the very first lines, Jane Austen’s classic novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ pokes affectionate fun at Georgian England.

A benevolent lecturer has to persuade a class of restless girls to stay inside on a rainy day.

Samuel Smiles warns us against pursuing popularity for its own sake, saying that it is a kind of cowardice.

Captain Cook’s friend and ship’s surgeon David Samwell gives us his impressions of the great explorer.

Sir Hubert Parry advised students at the Royal College of Music to respect their teachers, but to think for themselves too.

American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the demand for hard evidence as a peculiarly English trait.