Biography & Autobiography Books

1825-1842. [In the year 1825 Ealing was as quiet a country village as could be found within a dozen miles of Hyde Park Corner. Here stood a large semi-public school, which had risen to the front rank in numbers and reputation under Dr. Nicholas, of Wadham College, Oxford, who in 1791 became the son-in-law and successor of the previous master. The senior assistant-master in this school was George... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                NOVEMBER                                  1666 November 1st. Up, and was presented by Burton, one of our smith's wives, with a very noble cake, which I presently resolved to have my wife go with to-day, and some wine, and... more...

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LATE WILLIAM BECKFORD. Bath, August 21, 1838. My Dear Charlotte,—I have this day seen such an astonishing assemblage of works of art, so numerous and of so surprisingly rare a description that I am literally what Lord Byron calls “Dazzled and drunk with beauty.”  I feel so bewildered from beholding the rapid succession of some of the very finest productions of the great... more...

José Maria Jacobo Rafael Ramon Francisco Gabriel del Corazon de Jesus Gordon y Prendergast—to give the writer of this book the full name with which he was christened in Jeréz de la Frontera on March 19, 1856—belongs to an interesting, but unusual, type of the Scot abroad. These virile venturers group themselves into four categories. Illustrating them by reference to the Gordons alone, there was... more...

LIFE OF NICCOLÒ, CALLED TRIBOLOSCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT Raffaello the carpenter, surnamed Il Riccio de' Pericoli, who lived near the Canto a Monteloro in Florence, had born to him in the year 1500, as he used to tell me himself, a male child, whom he was pleased to call at baptism, like his own father, Niccolò; and having perceived that the boy had a quick and ready intelligence and a lofty... more...

PARIS WAR DAYS Saturday, August 1, 1914 This war comes like the traditional "Bolt from the Blue!" I had made arrangements to retire from active journalism and relinquish the duties of Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune, which I had fulfilled for sixteen consecutive years. In reply to a request from Mr. Ogden Reid, I had expressed willingness to remain at my post in Paris until the... more...

CHAPTER I. Our country is quietly enjoying the benefits of a great activity. Foreign Missions are still feeling a noble impulse, and the origin of this force was, under God, in the heart and brain of Samuel J. Mills. It is a name known to us, but a history almost forgotten. Only upon the shelves of some antiquarian, or in the undisturbed library of some old homestead can a volume be found bearing the... more...

YOUTH IN AYRSHIRE. Great men, great events, great epochs, it has been said, grow as we recede from them; and the rate at which they grow in the estimation of men is in some sort a measure of their greatness. Tried by this standard, Burns must be great indeed, for during the eighty years that have passed since his death, men's interest in the man himself and their estimate of his genius have been... more...

INTRODUCTION “Tell us about real folks.” This is the request that comes to us again and again from children in the upper grades. In response to this appeal, the authors, in preparing “Modern Americans,” have attempted to give the pupils the worth-while things they like to read rather than the things adults think they ought to like. Those who have taught reading very long agree that the old-time... more...

JANUARY 1668-1669 January 1st. Up, and presented from Captain Beckford with a noble silver warming-pan, which I am doubtful whether to take or no. Up, and with W. Hewer to the New Exchange, and then he and I to the cabinet-shops, to look out, and did agree, for a cabinet to give my wife for a New-year's gift; and I did buy one cost me L11, which is very pretty, of walnutt-tree, and will come home... more...