Life Gleanings

At Fairfield, a Virginia mill called “Mekenses” carries a name no one can explain. It is the first of T. J. Macon’s childhood mysteries, remembered from the banks of the Chickahominy.

In Hanover County, near Richmond, Macon looks back on life at his family’s plantation: a crowded household, visiting neighbors, generous tables—and enslaved people whose labor and care shaped the family’s days. He was the youngest of ten, raised in a society he recalls as warm and untroubled, even as political conflict began to cast its shadow. As the family moves from Fairfield to new homes and Macon grows toward school age, the old routines meet a country edging toward war. What could a child see coming, when the grown-ups themselves could only read the warning signs?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.