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Pandemics have afflicted human civilizations throughout history, yet these health crises have also led to progress in medicine and society that improved people’s lives. History shows that scientific innovation often proceeds from the collaboration of researchers across disciplines, nations, and institutions.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) was a writer, a minister’s wife, and mother of four daughters who worked among the poor and traveled widely. In the novel The Moorland Cottage, Maggie Browne, the daughter of a deceased clergyman, gives up her own life to devote herself to her brother, Edward. The nonfiction work An Accused Race is Gaskell’s reformist treatise on the oppression of the Cagots in Europe.

William Wymark Jacobs (1863-1943) was an English author of short stories and novels, well known for his comedies involving rural Essex characters. His most famous story, "The Monkey's Paw" (1902) is a tale of intense psychological horror. "The Old Man of the Sea" is a farcical comedy about a young man, George Wright, who tries to win a lady’s hand by pretending to be the only heir of a rich uncle.

Robert William Dale (1829-1895) was an English Congregational church leader based in Birmingham. In "Christian Worldliness" he explores the endless conflict between Christianity and worldliness. He warns of "the bitter melancholy, this profound discontent with all things in Heaven above and on the earth beneath". Rejecting the idea of "the sanctity of misery" he criticizes the Book of Ecclesiastes and the image of the traditional "Romish Saint", and concludes by stating that for the miseries which we cannot avoid, Divine love offers infinite consolation.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was a short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat. The short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" is about a miserly man who makes a deal with the devil. Irving’s fictional character Diedrich Knickerbocker is a Dutch-American historian and narrator of "The Conspiracy of the Cocked Hats" and the “golden age” of Wouter van Twiller, the Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam.

Samuel Davies (1723-1761) was an evangelist, Presbyterian minister, composer of hymns, and prolific author. Davies was one of the first Puritan preachers in Virginia, and one of earliest missionaries to slaves in the British colonies. Davies’ sermons were infused by eschatological fervor as he proclaimed the need for the liberation of the soul from the claws of sin. Sins like avarice, prodigality, evil diversions, vanity, sensuality, and popery had for 150 years afflicted the land, he complains....

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer. Three of his most prominent works are included here: Gitanjali is a cycle of 103 poems about the bliss of living and dying in wonder of the creation, while Stray Birds is a collection of some 300 poems. The poems are short but profound and the imagery lingers. The novel, The Home and the World is set on an estate in 1908; it’s a blend of love story and political intrigue against the background of the conflict in India.