Biography & Autobiography Books

"If an American dramatist or novelist had taken for the ground work of a play or work of fiction the story of the Bidwell family to-day related on another page of the Herald, all European critics would have told him that the story was too 'American,' too vast in its outlines, too high in its colors, too merely 'big' in fact. "The story has its lesson. The play is not a mere... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                DECEMBER                                  1664 December 1st. Up betimes and to White Hall to a Committee of Tangier, and so straight home and hard to my business at my office till noon, then to dinner, and so to my office, and by and... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                              JUNE & JULY                                 1664 June 1st. Up, having lain long, going to bed very late after the ending of my accounts. Being up Mr. Hollyard came to me, and to my great sorrow, after his great assuring me that I... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                               APRIL & MAY                                  1669 April 1st. Up, and with Colonel Middleton, at the desire of Rear-Admiral Kempthorne, the President, for our assisting them, to the Court-martiall on board a yacht in the River here,... more...

CHAPTER I. ALPHA. Richmond in 1861-62. Who that witnessed and shared the wild excitement which, upon the days immediately following the victory at Manassas, throbbed and pulsated throughout the crowded capital of the Southern Confederacy can ever forget? Men were beside themselves with joy and pride,—drunk with glory. By night the city blazed with illuminations, even the most humble home setting up... more...

THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS A long time ago, back in the early years of another century, a family named Clemens moved from eastern Tennessee to eastern Missouri—from a small, unheard-of place called Pall Mall, on Wolf River, to an equally small and unknown place called Florida, on a tiny river named the Salt. That was a far journey, in those days, for railway trains in 1835 had not reached the South... more...

JOHN THE BAPTIST. I. The Interest of his Biography.   "John, than which man a sadder or a greater    Not till this day has been of woman born;  John, like some iron peak by the Creator    Fired with the red glow of the rushing morn.   "This, when the sun shall rise and overcome it,    Stands in his shining, desolate and bare;  Yet not the less the inexorable... more...

The Calamities of Authors have often excited the attention of the lovers of literature; and, from the revival of letters to this day, this class of the community, the most ingenious and the most enlightened, have, in all the nations of Europe, been the most honoured, and the least remunerated. Pierius Valerianus, an attendant in the literary court of Leo X., who twice refused a bishopric that he might... more...

March 1st (Lord's day). Up and walked to White Hall, to the Chappell, where preached one Dr. Lewes, said heretofore to have been a great witt; but he read his sermon every word, and that so brokenly and so low, that nobody could hear at any distance, nor I anything worth hearing that sat near. But, which was strange, he forgot to make any prayer before sermon, which all wonder at, but they impute... more...

CHAPTER XLI. Captain Nye was very ill indeed, with spasmodic rheumatism. But the old gentleman was himself—which is to say, he was kind-hearted and agreeable when comfortable, but a singularly violent wild-cat when things did not go well. He would be smiling along pleasantly enough, when a sudden spasm of his disease would take him and he would go out of his smile into a perfect fury. He would groan... more...