Biography & Autobiography Books

CHAPTER I. HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE FROM ITS FOUNDATION TO THE BEGINNING OF WILKINS' WARDENSHIP. Wadham College was founded in 1610, when on July 31st the foundation-stone was laid; and opened in 1613, when, on April 20th, the Warden and Fellows elected by the Foundress were admitted; the Warden, by the Vice-Chancellor of the University in St Mary's Church; the fifteen Fellows by the Warden in... more...

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED? What kind of men were Jesus' disciples? What was it like to be with Jesus in Palestine? Why did some of the disciples find it so hard to understand Jesus? Who were the people who killed Jesus? Why did they do it? This book has been written to help you to answer these questions. It takes you right into Jesus' world so that you can hear his conversations with the... more...

CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF MR. SHERIDAN.—HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS IN LITERATURE. Richard Brinsley [Footnote: He was christened also by the name of Butler, after the Earl of Lanesborough.] Sheridan was born in the month of September, 1751, at No. 12, Dorset Street, Dublin, and baptized in St. Mary's Church, as appears by the register of the parish, on the fourth of the following month. His... more...

PREFACE The substance of "A Poor Man's House" was first recorded in a journal, kept for purposes of fiction, and in letters to one of the friends to whom the book is dedicated. Fiction, however, showed itself an inappropriate medium. I was unwilling to cut about the material, to modify the characters, in order to meet the exigencies of plot, form, and so on. I felt that the life and the... more...

CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE: LITERARY AND POLITICAL WRITINGS. David Hume was born, in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711. His parents were then residing in the parish of the Tron church, apparently on a visit to the Scottish capital, as the small estate which his father Joseph Hume, or Home, inherited, lay in Berwickshire, on the banks of the Whitadder or Whitewater, a few miles from the border, and... more...

The simple story of the life of Pocahontas is sufficiently romantic without the embellishments which have been wrought on it either by the vanity of Captain Smith or the natural pride of the descendants of this dusky princess who have been ennobled by the smallest rivulet of her red blood. That she was a child of remarkable intelligence, and that she early showed a tender regard for the whites and... more...

I. BEFORE THE ATTACK. By means of a lorry lift from railhead, and a horse borrowed from the Divisional Ammunition Column, I found Brigade Headquarters in a village that the Germans had occupied before their retreat in the spring of 1917. The huge, red-faced, grey-haired adjutant, best of ex-ranker officers, welcomed me on the farmhouse steps with a hard handshake and a bellowing "Cheerio!"... more...

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU THE MAN TO WHOM EXPRESSION WAS TRAVAIL From the "Confessions of Rousseau." It is strange to hear that those critics who spoke of Rousseau's "incomparable gift of expression," of his "easy, natural style," were ludicrously incorrect in their allusions. From his "Confessions" we learn that he had no gift of clear, fluent expression; that he was... more...

W psychoanalytic investigation, which usually contents itself with frail human material, approaches the great personages of humanity, it is not impelled to it by motives which are often attributed to it by laymen. It does not strive "to blacken the radiant and to drag the sublime into the mire"; it finds no satisfaction in diminishing the distance between the perfection of the great and the... more...

LEAVING ENGLAND No cheers, no handkerchiefs, no bands. Nothing that even suggested the time-honoured scene of soldiers leaving home to fight the Empire's battles. Parade was at midnight. Except for the lighted windows of the barracks, and the rush of hurrying feet, all was dark and quiet. It was more like ordinary night operations than the dramatic departure of a Unit of the First British... more...