Biography & Autobiography Books

AN ACCOUNT OF JAMES ALBERT, &c. I was born in the city Bournou; my mother was the eldest daughter of the reigning King there, of which Bournou is the chief city. I was the youngest of six children, and particularly loved by my mother, and my grand-father almost doated on me. I had, from my infancy, a curious turn of mind; was more grave and reserved in my disposition than either of my brothers and... more...

JANUARY 1667-1668 January 1st. Up, and all the morning in my chamber making up some accounts against this beginning of the new year, and so about noon abroad with my wife, who was to dine with W. Hewer and Willet at Mrs. Pierces, but I had no mind to be with them, for I do clearly find that my wife is troubled at my friendship with her and Knepp, and so dined with my Lord Crew, with whom was Mr.... more...

Birth of Mr. Washington.... His mission to the French on the Ohio.... Appointed Lieutenant Colonel of a regiment of regular troops.... Surprises Monsieur Jumonville.... Capitulation of fort Necessity.... Is appointed aid-de-camp to General Braddock.... Defeat and death of that general.... Is appointed to the command of a regiment.... Extreme distress of the frontiers, and exertions of Colonel... more...

PREFACE No attempt is made in the following pages to submit to historical treatment the vast and varied mass of printed matter which Cardan left as his contribution to letters and science, except in the case of those works which are, in purpose or incidentally, autobiographical, or of those which furnish in themselves effective contributions towards the framing of an estimate of the genius and... more...

PRIESTLEY IN AMERICA There lies before the writer a tube of glass, eleven and one half inches in length and a quarter of an inch in diameter. Its walls are thin. At one end there is evidence that an effort was made to bend this tube in the flame. Ordinarily it would be tossed aside; but this particular tube was given the writer years ago by a great-grandson of Joseph Priestley. Attached to the tube is... more...

DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS. JULY 1667 July 1st. Up betimes, about 9 o'clock, waked by a damned noise between a sow gelder and a cow and a dog, nobody after we were up being able to tell us what it was. After being ready we took coach, and, being very sleepy, droused most part of the way to Gravesend, and there 'light, and down to the new batterys, which are like to be very fine, and there did hear... more...

EDWARD MACDOWELL BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH EDWARD ALEXANDER MACDOWELL was born in New York City, U.S.A., on December 18th, 1861, of American parents descended from a Quaker family of Scotch-Irish extraction who emigrated to America about the middle of the 18th Century. He was their third son. As a boy he studied the pianoforte with Juan Buitrago, a South American, Pablo Desvernine, a Cuban, and for a short... more...

INTRODUCTION It was on the road from Neufchateau to La Foche, where Base Hospital 117 was located, that I first became acquainted with the author of this book. He evidently knew how to run a Ford camionette, even though it was not in just the shape in which it left the factory. I remember that I asked him what he did for a living back in the States—those service uniforms were great levelers—and he... more...

I. THE CHILD OF THE FOREST Of first importance in the making of the American people is that great forest which once extended its mysterious labyrinth from tide-water to the prairies when the earliest colonists entered warily its sea-worn edges a portion of the European race came again under a spell it had forgotten centuries before, the spell of that untamed nature which created primitive man. All the... more...

CHAPTER I MY TICKET FOR BLIGHTY In the World War, it was not only the men who went "over the top" to assault enemy positions who ran great risks. Scouts, snipers, patrols, working parties, all took their lives in their hands every time they ventured into No Man's Land, and even those who were engaged in essential work behind the lines were far from being safe from death or wounds. On the... more...