Mikhail Bakunin (1814 –1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist and is considered one of the most influential figures of anarchism. Bakunin’s ‘God and the State’, an unfinished manuscript published posthumously in 1882, is a classic and influential atheist text which sets out the anarchist critique of religion as bound up in legitimising the state. The work criticises Christianity and the technocracy movement from a materialist, anarchist and individualist perspective. God and the State...

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was a famous Baptist evangelist. In "Biblical Psychology", Chambers writes a treatise to the soul. It remains one of his most beloved books.

'Walden' is the most famous publication by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. In it, he reflects on the nature around him, while living in a cabin surrounded by woods near Concord, Massachusetts. In 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience', Thoreau discusses that citizens ought to maintain their senses of wisdom and justice, regardless of a government's current laws.

Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon (1841 –1931) was a French polymath who wrote on anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine and physics. He is best known for his 1895 work ‘The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind’, which is considered a seminal work of crowd psychology. In the book, Le Bon identifies the primary characteristics of crowd psychology as impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of critical judgement, and the exaggeration of feelings. Le Bon claims that an i...

‘The Raven’ is a narrative poem by writer Edgar Allan Poe which is noted for its musical rhythm and supernatural ambiance. It deals with a raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, chronicling the poet's descent into madness. The poem makes use of classical, folk, mythological and religious references.

‘Vrill, The power of the Coming Race’ (1870) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton is an early science fiction novel. The setting is a strange subterranean world inhabited by beautiful entities that resemble the angels described in scripture. The advanced beings known as Vril-ya live underground – using the mysterious ‘Vril’ as an energy source – but intend to reclaim the surface of the earth as their own. The narrator end deep inside the Earth via a natural chasm in a mine shaft. He is rescued by the V...

George MacDonald (1824 –1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. ‘Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women’ is a fantasy novel, which was first published in 1858. It is a coming-of-age tale or spiritual quest narrative of the character Anodos, a young man who is pulled into a dreamlike realm where he goes on a long journey full of dramatic adventures. A...

Gertrude Chandler Warner (1890 1979) was an author, mainly of children's stories. ‘The Boxcar Children’ is the first book in the series and was published in 1924. It tells the story of four orphaned children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny who create a home for themselves in an abandoned boxcar in the forest. Later, they meet their kind and wealthy grandfather and go to live with him. The book was adapted for film in 2014. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association n...