December Series of the Month: The Complete Works of Charles Dickens

With Christmas right around the corner, it's inevitable that Scrooge and Oliver Twist will be popping up on everyone's television. However, Charles Dickens' fascinating works are truest in their original form — books. This month, Cosimo is excited to present The Complete Works of Charles Dickens as our December Series of the Month.

Charles Dickens is iconic, legendary, and masterfully clever. In these thirty beautiful volumes, which include each and every work written by Charles Dickens, readers can immerse themselves in the mind of one of history's most celebrated literary geniuses. He is entirely responsible for the popular image of Victorian London that still lingers today, and his many celebrated characters are mentioned time and time again. But it was his stirring portraits and his fervent cries for social, moral, and legal justice for the working poor in the grim early decades of the Industrial Revolution that powerfully impacted social concerns well into the 20th century.

This essential collector's set will excite librarians, professors, students of literature, and the passionate reader. Cosimo offers this series by individual volume at leading online bookstores or as a full 30-volume set in hardcover or paperback. If you are interested in purchasing the full set, please contact us.

The paperback retail list price for this series is: $389.70 but now our price is: $311.99 (you save $77.71 or a 20 percent discount) and free shipping.

The hardcover retail list price for this series is: $899.70, but now our price is: $719.99 (you save $179.71 or a 20 percent discount) and free shipping.

September Series of the Month: Bibliography of Forbidden Books

In these scary Orwell-like times, Cosimo is celebrating Banned Books Week with Bibliography of Forbidden Books by Henry Spencer Ashbee as our Series of the Month for September!

In this three-volume work that established Henry Spencer Ashbee, British book collector, travel writer and bibliographer, as England's leading authority on pornography, Ashbee describes scores of "curious, uncommon and erotic books" that were banned or otherwise prohibited from legitimate sale during the Victorian era... and some even until the 1960s. This catalog of mostly forgotten works is an invaluable (and highly entertaining) resource for bibliophiles, students of erotica, and collectors of Victoriana.

This series contains "gentlemen only" titles such as: Intrigues and Confessions of a Ballet Girl, The Pleasures of Kissing and Being Kissed, the infamous Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the Cloisters Laid Open, Memoirs of Miss Mary-Catherine Cadiere, and Pretty Little Games for Young Ladies and Gentlemen.

About the Author
British book collector, travel writer, and bibliographer Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834-1900), aka Pisanus Fraxi, is thought by some to have authored the notorious Victorian sexual memoir My Secret Life.

About the Organization

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. The 2019 celebration will be held September 22  -September 28, the theme this year is Censorship Leaves Us in the Dark. To find an event near you, please visit the Banned Books website.


The hardcover retail list price for the series is $101.97, but now: our price: $79.99 (you save $22 or a 27 percent discount)

The paperback retail list price for the series is $74.97, but now: our price: $59.99 (you save $15 or a 26 percent discount)

July Series of the Month: An Essay on the Principle of Population

In honor of the 117th anniversary of the founding of US Census Bureau, we are showcasing An Essay on the Principle of Population as our Series of the Month.

Around 1796, Mr. Malthus, an English gentleman, had finished reading a book that confidently predicted human life would continue to grow richer, more comfortable and more secure, and that nothing could stop the march of progress. He discussed this theme with his son, Thomas, and Thomas ardently disagreed with both his father and the book he had been reading, along with the entire idea of unending human progress. Mr. Malthus suggested that he write down his objections so that they could discuss them point-by-point. Not long after, Thomas returned with a rather long essay. His father was so impressed that he urged his son to have it published. And so, in 1798, appeared An Essay on Population. Though it was attacked at the time and ridiculed for many years afterward, it has remained one of the most influential works in the English language on the general checks and balances of the world's population and its necessary control. Originally two volumes, it is presented here in an omnibus edition.

Though it was attacked at the time and ridiculed for many years afterward, it has remained one of the most influential works in the English language on the general checks and balances of the world's population and its necessary control. This is a replica of the 1826 sixth edition. 

About the Author

Thomas Robert Mamthus (1766-1834) was educated at Jesus College in Cambridge. In 1798, he was curate at Albury in Surrey, and became a Professor of History and Political Economy at Haileybury College, 1805. 

The paperback retail list price for this series is: $29.98  but now our price is: $24.99 (you save $4.99 or a 17 percent discount) and free shipping.

The hardcover retail list price for this series is: $47.98, but now our price is: $39.99 (you save $7.99 or a 16 percent discount) and free shipping.

December Series of the Month: The Complete Works of Charles Dickens

With Christmas only a few weeks away, it's inevitable that Scrooge and Oliver Twist will be popping up on everyone's television. However, Charles Dickens' fascinating works are truest in their original form--books. This month, Cosimo is excited to present The Complete Works of Charles Dickens as our December Series of the Month.

Charles Dickens is iconic, legendary, and masterfully clever. In these thirty beautiful volumes, which include each and every work written by Charles Dickens, readers can immerse themselves in the mind of one of history's most celebrated literary geniuses. He is entirely responsible for the popular image of Victorian London that still lingers today, and his many celebrated characters are mentioned time and time again. But it was his stirring portraits and his fervent cries for social, moral, and legal justice for the working poor in the grim early decades of the Industrial Revolution that powerfully impacted social concerns well into the 20th century.

This essential collector's set will excite librarians, professors, students of literature, and the passionate reader. Cosimo offers this series by individual volume at leading online bookstores or as a full 30-volume set in hardcover or paperback. If you are interested in purchasing the full set, please contact us.

The paperback retail list price for this series is: $389.70 but now our price is: $311.99 (you save $77.71 or a 20 percent discount) and free shipping.

The hardcover retail list price for this series is: $899.70, but now our price is: $719.99 (you save $179.71 or a 20 percent discount) and free shipping.

November Organization of the Month: The Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum

In honor of the author of our November Series of the Month, we have selected The Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum as our Organization of the Month!

Nestled in the heart of the New York Fingerlakes region, the museum is located in Dresden, the birthplace and home of Ingersoll.

Period furniture and replica rooms are open and available for tours; see where Ingersoll was born, learn about his war service, and his law career.

The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5pm, and a $5 donation is suggested.

Get a sneak peak in this short video from the museum before you plan your trip!

** Please take note, the museum is currently closed until Memorial Day 2019

November Series of the Month: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

We are shining the spotlight on this controversial election month, midterms, and America politics, by reading The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll as our Series of the Month.

Ingersoll was a notorious radical whose uncompromising views on religion and slavery (they were bad, in his opinion), women's suffrage (a good idea, he believed), and other contentious matters of his era made him a wildly popular orator and critic of 19th-century American culture and public life. 

Legendary as a speaker—he memorized his speeches and could talk for hours without notes—and as a proponent of freethought, Ingersoll is an American original whose words still ring with truth and power today. His most important works are gathered in this 12-volume collected edition, first published posthumously in 1901.

Go out and vote! Not sure where you stand? Check out this handy tool here.

The paperback retail list price for this series is: $215.88, but now our price is: $174.99 (you save $40.89 or a 19 percent discount)

The hardcover retail list price for this series is: $407.88, but now our price is: $324.99 (you save $82.89 or a 20 percent discount)

October Series of the Month: Loren Coleman Presents Cryptozoology Classics

We are excited to highlight our popular Loren Coleman Presents Series as our October Series of the Month, just in time for all Hallows Eve!

Loren Coleman is one of the world's leading cryptozoologists and has been seeking evidence and folklore since the Abominable Snowmen caught his interest more than five decades ago. 

Loren Coleman has selected some of the most fascinating and also rare books from the time when the term 'cryptozoology" did not yet exist. This series brings to light some of the curiosities and wonders from zoology but also from myths and folklore. Coleman provides each title with a reflective introduction explaining the context and meaning of each of those significant works of cryptozoology. From werewolves to dragons, from sea monsters to unexplained myths, Coleman explores it all.


The series includes the following titles, both in paperback and hardcover:

Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life by Ivan Anderson

Curious Creatures in Zoology by John Ashton

Curiosities of Natural History (in four volumes) by Francis Buckland

Dragons and Dragons Lore by Ernest Ingersoll

Gleanings From the Natural History of the Ancients by Rev. Morgan Watkins

Mythical Monsters by Charles Gould

Natural History, Lore and Legend by Frederick Hulme

Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts by R.T. Gould

Sea Fables Explained by Henry Lee

Sea Monsters Unmasked by Henry Lee

Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life by Catherine Hopley

The Book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gould

The Dragon, Image and Demon by Hampden DuBose

The Dragon in China and Japan by M.W. de Visser

The Great Sea Serpent by A.C. Oudemans

The Romance of Natural History by Philip Gosse

The Unicorn: A Mythological Investigation by Robert Brown

The Werewolf by Montague Summers

Thunderbirds: America's Living Legends of Giant Birds by Mark Hall



About Loren Coleman
Today, Loren Coleman, as one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, is an honorary member of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, a life member of the International Society of Cryptozoology, and an inaugural inductee of the Roger Patterson Memorial Bigfoot Museum in Portland, Oregon. He travels extensively for fieldwork and lectures and writes a daily blog at the Internet’s most popular cryptozoology news site, Cryptomundo. Coleman is the director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.



Cosimo offers this series by individual volume at leading online bookstores or as a volume set in hardcover and paperback. If you are interested in purchasing the full set, please contact us.

Our special set price for this unique series in hardcover is $499.99 (from the combined official list price of $668.82: you save $168.83 or a 25 percent discount and you get free shipping)

Our special set price for this unique series in paperback is: $249.99 (from the combined official list price of $332.79: you save $82.80 or a 25 percent discount and get free shipping)

September Series of the Month: Bibliography of Forbidden Books

In an era where some books are banned in US libraries, where the tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter play questionable roles in suppressing certain opinions and information throughout the Western world, let alone in other less open societies, Cosimo is celebrating Banned Books Week with Bibliography of Forbidden Books by Henry Spencer Ashbee as our Series of the Month for September!

In this three-volume work that established Henry Spencer Ashbee, British book collector, travel writer and bibliographer, as England's leading authority on pornography, Ashbee describes scores of "curious, uncommon and erotic books" that were banned or otherwise prohibited from legitimate sale during the Victorian era... and some even until the 1960s. This catalog of mostly forgotten works is an invaluable (and highly entertaining) resource for bibliophiles, students of erotica, and collectors of Victoriana.

This series contains "gentlemen only" titles such as: Intrigues and Confessions of a Ballet Girl, The Pleasures of Kissing and Being Kissed, the infamous Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the Cloisters Laid Open, Memoirs of Miss Mary-Catherine Cadiere, and Pretty Little Games for Young Ladies and Gentlemen.

About the Author
British book collector, travel writer, and bibliographer Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834-1900), aka Pisanus Fraxi, is thought by some to have authored the notorious Victorian sexual memoir My Secret Life.

About the Organization

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. The 2018 celebration will be held September 23 - September 29. To find an event near you, please visit the Banned Books website.


The hardcover retail list price for the series is $101.97, but now: our price: $79.99 (you save $22 or a 27 percent discount)

The paperback retail list price for the series is $74.97, but now: our price: $59.99 (you save $15 or a 26 percent discount)

August Series of the Month: Abraham Lincoln: A History by John M. Hay

We are showcasing Abraham Lincoln: A History by John M. Hay as our Series of the Month this August in honor of the late President being in the news for his leadership skills, his use of the telegraph (instead of Twitter), and his lost loves.

Considered one of the best treatments of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln of its time, this 10-volume portrait of the man and his administration of the United States at the moment of its greatest upheaval is both intimate and scholarly.

Written by two private secretaries to the president and first published in 1890, this astonishingly in-depth work is still praised today for its clear, easy-to-read style and vitality. This new replica edition features all the original illustrations.


About the Authors 
American journalist and statesman John Milton Hay (1838-1905) was only 22 when he became a private secretary to Lincoln. A former member of the Providence literary circle when he attended Brown University in the late 1850s, he may have been the real author of Lincoln's famous "Letter to Mrs. Bixby." After Lincoln's death, Hay later served as editor of the New York Tribune and as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom under President William McKinley.

American author John George Nicolay (1832-1901) was born in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. as a child. Before serving as Lincoln's private secretary, he worked as a newspaper editor and later as assistant to the secretary of state of Illinois.


The hardcover retail list price for the series is $449.90, but now: our price: $359.99 (you save $90 or a 20 percent discount)

The paperback retail list price: $279.90, but now: our price: $229.99 (you save $50 or a 18 percent discount)

July Series of the Month: Roswell Reports

Continuing our month of all things UFOs, alien aircrafts, and Corona, we are highlighting on The Roswell Reports as our Series of the Month for July!

Colonel Richard L. Weaver and First Lieutenant James McAndrew, at the request of Congressional Representative Steven Schiff (R-NM), sifted through old reports in order to explain the events that occurred in July 1947, which became known as the Roswell Incident. Included in the report are references to Air Force experiments conducted at the time of the crash landing that could account for the debris discovered and investigated.

Case Closed includes further analysis and discussion of the events. The Foreword explains, "Our objective throughout this inquiry has been simple and consistent: to find all the facts and bring them to light. If documents were classified, declassify them; where they were dispersed, bring them into a single source for public review."

These reports, originally published in 1995 and 1997 respectively, include an all-new Introduction from UFO-expert Stanton Friedman. The U.S. Air Force is the aviation branch of the United States military. The headquarters of this branch authorized several research projects on the origin and existence of UFOs and published multiple reports of their findings from the 1950s through the 1980s. It is still the subject of speculation today whether the U.S. Air Force is responsible for a large-scale cover-up of UFO and extraterrestrial evidence.

The Roswell Reports are both available in paperback at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

June Series of the Month: The History of England from the Accession of James II

Still reminiscing about he Royal Wedding, afternoon tea, and horse-drawn carriages? Yeah, us too. To commemorate the new couple who are now Duke and Duchess of Sussex, our June Series of the Month is The History of England from the Accession of James II by Thomas Babington MacAulay.

Perhaps the most famous example of the "Whig interpretation of history"-the idea that the human story has been inevitably destined for enlightenment, progress, and scientific truth-this five-volume work instantly revolutionized the British understanding of history when its first volume was published in 1848.

About the AuthorThough not without its detractors-Karl Marx called author Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay(1800-1859), an English politician and historian, "a systematic falsifier of history"-it nevertheless became a standard text, and one that is today required reading for anyone who wishes to explore changing values and ideals in historical scholarship.

The hardcover retail list price for the series is $159.95 but now: our price: $129.99 (you save $30 or a 19 percent discount)

The paperback retail list price: $99.95, but now: our price: $79.99 (you save $20 or a 20 percent discount)

May Series of the Month: Abraham Lincoln: A History by John M. Hay

We are showcasing Abraham Lincoln: A History by John M. Hay as our Series of the Month this May to celebrate Lincoln becoming the Republican candidate in May during the 1860 presidential election.

Considered one of the best treatments of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln of its time, this 10-volume portrait of the man and his administration of the United States at the moment of its greatest upheaval is both intimate and scholarly.

Written by two private secretaries to the president and first published in 1890, this astonishingly in-depth work is still praised today for its clear, easy-to-read style and vitality. This new replica edition features all the original illustrations.


About the Authors American journalist and statesman John Milton Hay (1838-1905) was only 22 when he became a private secretary to Lincoln. A former member of the Providence literary circle when he attended Brown University in the late 1850s, he may have been the real author of Lincoln's famous "Letter to Mrs. Bixby." After Lincoln's death, Hay later served as editor of the New York Tribune and as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom under President William McKinley.

American author John George Nicolay (1832-1901) was born in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. as a child. Before serving as Lincoln's private secretary, he worked as a newspaper editor and later as assistant to the secretary of state of Illinois.


The hardcover retail list price for the series is $449.90, but now: our price: $359.99 (you save $90 or a 20 percent discount)

The paperback retail list price: $279.90, but now: our price: $229.99 (you save $50 or a 18 percent discount)

April Series of the Month: A Library of the World’s Best Literature

One of the great achievements of the book world, A Library of the World’s Best Literature edited by Charles Dudley Warner, is our Series of the Month this April!

A Library of the World's Best Literature includes poetry, short stories, letters, and novel excerpts, with essays about the author or the subject of the text. There are also sections that discuss a series of works grouped by subject matter, era, or nationality. The collection lives up to its ‘worldy’ description, including everything from the work of his friend, Mark Twain, to chronologies that detail the great authors of Polish, Swedish, German, and Swiss literature, to name a few. It’s a truly comprehensive series of world literature, covering centuries of great writing, and a helpful introduction to the breadth of literature available to interested readers.

About the Author
Popular American essayist, novelist, and journalist Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) was renowned for the warmth and intimacy of his writing, which encompassed travelogue, biography and autobiography, fiction, and more, and influenced entire generations of his fellow writers.

Cosimo offers Warner's impressive series by individual volume at various online bookstores or as a full set in hardcover or paperback. This is an unique and voluminous series, but could transform your reading room, living room or library into a den of knowledge: great for collectors, librarians and readers who like to expand their personal library. If you are interested in purchasing the full set, please contact us.

The hardcover retail list price for the series is $1,609.54, but now: our price: $1,289.99  (you save $320 or a 20 percent discount)

The paperback retail list price: $899.55, but now: our price: $699.99 (you save $200 or a 22 percent discount)

March Series of the Month: Living My Life by Emma Goldman

Happy Women's History Month from all of us at Cosimo! We are celebrating some leading ladies this March, starting with Emma Goldman who wrote our Series of the Month, Living My Life.

Radical thinker and writer Emma Goldman presents her life story and memories in Living My Life, first published in 1931. From her arrival in New York as a 20-year-old seamstress, when she immediately launched into a life of activism and public agitation, she recalls her childhood in Lithuania, her immigration to the U.S. as a teenager, and her wild adventures as an independent and intelligent woman. 

An important and influential figure in such far-flung geopolitical events as the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War, Goldman is one of the most storied people of the 20th century. And her story, in her own inimitable words, is one of the great biographies, and one of the great personal histories of a turbulent era.


About the Author
Anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman (1869-1940) is one of the towering figures in global radicalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Lithuania, she emigrated to the United States as a teenager, was deported in 1919 for her criticism of the U.S. military draft in World War I, and died in Toronto after a globetrotting life. An early advocate of birth control, women's rights, and workers' unions, she was an important and influential figure in such far-flung geopolitical events as the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War. Among her many books are My Disillusionment in Russia (1925) and Living My Life (1931).

Cosimo offers this impressive series by individual volume at various online bookstores or as a full set in hardcover or paperback. This is an unique and voluminous series, but could transform your reading room, living room or library into a den of knowledge: great for collectors, readers who like to expand their personal library or professional librarians. If you are interested in purchasing the full set, please contact us.

February Series of the Month: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics

Celebrate the shortest month of the year by reading Cosimo's February Series of the Month: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, collected by Charles William Eliot.

Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set (a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology) was assembled by American academic Charles William Eliot (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf.

Eliot compiled these titles to serve as a "home educator" -- for people who couldn't attend Harvard so they too could get a literary education with some of the best and most well-known classics around the world.

Eliot’s collection was even featured in the memoir: What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else, in which author Christopher Beha details how he turned to these great works for comfort and inspiration during a time of personal struggle. Beha’s memoir illustrates what Eliot believed about The Five Foot Shelf: that the great works of literature are still worth consulting, as a source not just of education, but of edification in every sense of the word.

Cosimo offers this series by individual volume at leading online bookstores or as a full set in hardcover or paperback, especially of interest to historians, collectors, who like to expand their personal library, professional librarians, or for parents wanting their high school kids to learn more before going off to college. Actually it is a must for those of you who want to know the fundamentals of literature, philosophy and history without being muddled by a multitude of platitudes in social media, gaming and never-ending TV shows. If you are interested in purchasing the full set, please contact us.

The collection includes titles such as:

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• The Complete Poems of John Milton
• Ben-Hur
• The Origin of Species
• Don Quixote
• The Odyssey
• Beowulf
• Aeneid, and many more

The paperback retail list price for this series is: $1209.49, but now our price is: $969.99 (you save $239.50 or a 20 percent discount)

The hardcover retail list price for this series is: $1784.49, but now our price is: $1429.99 (you save $354.5 or a 20 percent discount)

January Series of the Month: The Personal Power Books

We at Cosimo are starting off the month of January by highlighting books that will help our readers become the best version of themselves. We are happy to present Cosimo's Series of the Month: The Personal Power Books by William Walker Atkinson.

The original 12-volume series, the Personal Power Books are a set of self-help books designed to be carefully studied to develop personal power. In the Foreword to Volume I, personal power is defined as "The ability of strength possessed by the human individual, by which he does, or may, accomplish desired results in an efficient manner, along the lines of physical, mental, and spiritual effort and endeavor." In other words, these books describe the methods to attaining control and power in your own life, whether it be financial, physical, mental, or emotional--certainly a worthy goal for any individual.

About the Author
American writer William Walker Atkinson (1862-1932) was editor of the popular magazine New Thought from 1901 to 1905, editor of the journal Advanced Thought from 1916 to 1919 and proponent of the New Thought movement. He authored dozens of New Thought books under numerous pseudonyms, including the name "Yogi Ramacharaka", some of which are likely still unknown today.

The paperback retail list price for this series is: $179.88 but now our price is: $139.99 (you save $39.89 or a 22 percent discount) and free shipping.

The hardcover retail list price for this series is: $275.88, but now our price is: $219.99 (you save $55.89 or a 20 percent discount) and free shipping.

December Series of the Month: History of the American People

"What with adventurers who were ungovernable and men of industry and ability who wished to be let alone, it was not an easy or a promising place in which to set up the authority of proprietors who were in England and had done nothing to help the men whom they meant to govern. Sir William Berkeley, nevertheless, being himself one of the proprietors, took the first step towards making good the rights of the new masters in 1664, when, by the authority of his associates, he commissioned William Drummond to act as governor among the people at Chowan and Perquimans."
       —from Chapter VIII: “New Jersey and Carolina”

Cosimo is lighting the birthday candles this month for Woodrow Wilson, born on December 28th, 1856! Help us in wishing him a happy birthday by picking up our December Series of the Month, A History of the American People.

It was during his tenure at Princeton that Wilson penned this five-volume history of the United States, and it reflects many of his ideas and biases he later brought to national politics. This beautiful replica of the 1902 first edition features all the original halftone illustrations. Students of Wilson and of the ever-changing lens through which history is told and retold will find this an enlightening and illuminating work.


About the Author: 

Before he served as the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921, before he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was a lawyer and an academic: a university professor of history and politics, and president of Princeton University.

Cosimo offers Wilson's impressive series by individual volume at various online bookstores or as a full set in hardcover or paperback, especially of interest to collectors, readers who like to expand their personal library or professional librarians. If you are interested in purchasing the full set, please contact us.

The hardcover retail list price for the series is $154.95, but now:our price: $119.99  (you save $35 or a 22 percent discount)The paperback retail list price: $64.95, but now: our price: $49.99 (you save $15 or a 23 percent discount) including free shipping.

November Series of the Month: Book of Etiquette

Many of you will be celebrating Thanksgiving next week, a holiday spent with family and friends at the table surrounded by mounds and mounds of food. For some, perhaps this is a stressful time, and could benefit from an etiquette refresher. Therefore, Book of Etiquette by Lillian Eichler is our November Series of the Month!

The only serious competitor to Emily Post as etiquette maven to America between the wars, Lillian Eichler Watson (b. 1902) was a 19-year-old copywriter for the book publisher Doubleday when she was commissioned to rewrite the outdated Encyclopedia of Etiquette by Emily Holt. This is the two-volume guide to good manners she produced in 1921, mining her own experience as a social misfit and would-be social climber, and it was a huge hit with those aspiring to a grander station.

Volume I covers:

• why it pays to be agreeable
• the secret of social success
• engagements and weddings
• how and when to make an introduction
• the intricacies of the social call
• calling cards for the young lady, the married couple, and others
• correspondence and invitations
• appropriate dress for children
• addressing titled people
• and much more

Volume II covers:

• how to address servants
• correct dress for the butler
• use of the napkin
• evolution of the afternoon tea
• the man at the garden party
• yachting parties for bachelors
• musicales and private theatricals
• when the lady is asked to dance
• some important rules about golf
• the charm of correct speech
• the eccentric dresser
• poise in public
• and much more

The paperback retail list price: $33.98, but now: our price: $29.99 (you save $3.99 or a 13 percent discount)

September Series of the Month: History of the Expedition Under the Command of Lewis and Clark

In recognition of the end of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (which began in May 1804 and lasted until September 1806), we have selected History of the Expedition Under the Command of Lewis and Clark by Elliot Coues as our September Series of the Month.

It is one of the grandest adventures in American history, and this is the premiere retelling of it. When explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on their continent-spanning journey across North America in 1804, they also began keeping daily journals full of detailed accounts of their travels and keen observations of the wildlife, flora, and native peoples they encountered. But it wasn't until 1893 that those journals were edited into this definitive presentation.

The original four-volume 1893 work is presented here in its entirety in three volumes, and including all of editor Elliot Coues's explanatory notes, chapter synopses, and more. Volume I also features a biography of Lewis written by Thomas Jefferson and a biography of Clark written by Coues. Volume II features the expedition's forging of the mighty Columbia River, encounters with Shoshone, Tillamook, and Chinnook Indians, and much more. 

As thrilling as it is informative, this is essential reading for anyone fascinated by the opening of the American frontier. 

About the Editor

American doctor, historian, ornithologist, and author Elliot Coues (1842-1899) helped create the taxonomic nomenclature still in use by zoologists. He wrote the foundational Key to North American Birds (1872) and edited The Travels of Zebulon M. Pike (1895).

The paperback retail list price for this series is: $53.97, but now our price is: $44.99 (you save $8.98 or a 16 percent discount)

August Series of the Month: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

American freethinker and author Robert Green Ingersoll was born in August of 1833, therefore, we at Cosimo are celebrating by reading The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll as our Series of the Month!

Ingersoll was a notorious radical whose uncompromising views on religion and slavery (they were bad, in his opinion), women's suffrage (a good idea, he believed), and other contentious matters of his era made him a wildly popular orator and critic of 19th-century American culture and public life. 

Legendary as a speaker—he memorized his speeches and could talk for hours without notes—and as a proponent of freethought, Ingersoll is an American original whose words still ring with truth and power today. His most important works are gathered in this 12-volume collected edition, first published posthumously in 1901.



The paperback retail list price for this series is: $215.88, but now our price is: $174.99 (you save $40.89 or a 19 percent discount)

The hardcover retail list price for this series is: $407.88, but now our price is: $324.99 (you save $82.89 or a 20 percent discount)