Theodore Roosevelt

In wartime New York, a reporter asks Theodore Roosevelt whether fever is still troubling him. “Never felt better in my life!” he replies—and the crowd sees a familiar smile, not a sick man.

Edmund Lester Pearson’s biography turns from that 1917 sidewalk scene to Roosevelt’s Manhattan boyhood, where asthma and a comfortable upbringing might have made idleness an easy choice. His father’s example leaves no room for it, and the boy finds his own work in the animals he collects, studies, and tries to preserve. A dead seal in a Broadway market inspires the grandly named “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History”; mice tucked in an ice-chest and toads beneath boys’ hats make science a family affair, not always to the family’s delight. How did this breathless, curious boy turn collecting into a lifelong calling?

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.