Biography & Autobiography Books

CHAPTER I AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY Paris, Tuesday, August 4th. I presented myself at the American Embassy today and offered my services to Mr. Herrick. They were promptly accepted. I was put to work with such suddenness that no time was spent in determining my official status. I cannot say whether I am a doorman or an Attaché. At present the duties of the two seem to be identical. Now, as in 1870, the... more...

PREFACE This work is based on the article on Shakespeare which I contributed last year to the fifty-first volume of the ‘Dictionary of National Biography.’  But the changes and additions which the article has undergone during my revision of it for separate publication are so numerous as to give the book a title to be regarded as an independent venture.  In its general aims, however, the present... more...

PREFATORY NOTE. The life and writings of Pope have been discussed in a literature more voluminous than that which exists in the case of almost any other English man of letters. No biographer, however, has produced a definitive or exhaustive work. It seems therefore desirable to indicate the main authorities upon which such a biographer would have to rely, and which have been consulted for the purpose... more...

INTRODUCTION [Lockhart, 1794-1854] "Nations yet to come will look back upon his history as to some grand and supernatural romance. The fiery energy of his youthful career, and the magnificent progress of his irresistible ambition, have invested his character with the mysterious grandeur of some heavenly appearance; and when all the lesser tumults and lesser men of our age shall have passed away... more...

CHAPTER I. From Southampton to Malta. On the outbreak of the war I joined the Royal Fusiliers, uninfluenced by the appeal of wall-posters or the blandishments of a recruiting sergeant. My former experience as a trooper in the Hertfordshire Yeomanry being accounted unto me for military righteousness, I sailed with my regiment from Southampton on September 3rd, 1914. We thought we were bound for France... more...

CHAPTER I THE NEED FOR A DOER There come times in the affairs of men which call for "not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work." Such a time is at hand. A great war, the most devastating in history, has been concluded. Its moral lesson has been taught by its master minds and learned in penitence, we may hope, by the erring and wrongly willful. But the fruits of victory are ungathered and... more...

The Play—The Russian—Petri—Rosalie at the Convent When the marquis had gone, seeing Rosalie engaged with Veronique, I set myself to translate the 'Ecossaise' for the actors at Genoa, who seemed pretty good ones, to play. I thought Rosalie looking sad at dinner, and said, "What is the matter, dearest? You know I do not like to see you looking melancholy." "I am vexed at... more...

ENLISTMENT—INSTRUCTION—DETENTION ON THE RIO GRANDE—MARCH TO VICTORIA AND TAMPICO—LANDING AT VERA CRUZ—DEATH OF CAPTAIN SWIFT. Previous to the war with Mexico there existed among the people of the United States a strong prejudice against maintaining even a small regular army in time of peace. Active opposition to a permanent, regular military establishment extended to the West Point Academy,... more...

INTRODUCTION. Humphry Davy was born at Penzance, in Cornwall, on the 17th of December, 1778, and died at Geneva on the 29th of May, 1829, at the age of fifty.  He was a philosopher who turned knowledge to wisdom; he was one of the foremost of our English men of science; and this book, written when he was dying, which makes Reason the companion of Faith, shows how he passed through the light of earth... more...

Karl May, born in 1842 under the name Carl Friedrich May, published the first volume of his autobiography in November of 1910. He never found the time to write the planned second volume or any of the other future works he is referring to in this book before he died in 1912. Rudolf Lebius felt insulted by what Karl May had to say about him in his autobiography, and, less than one month after the sale of... more...