Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) was an Italian general and politician who played a large role in making of what Italy is today. He is known as one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland". Garibaldi was a central figure in the Italian Risorgimento (Resurrection), and led the famous Expedition of the Thousand on behalf and with the consent of Victor Emmanuel II. The volunteers under his command wore red shirts as their uniform and became known in the popular stories as, "The Red Shirts."He gained his military expertise from his experiences in Brazil, Uruguay as well as Europe...

Edward Steiner spent his life figuring out how America manages to take in aliens from all over the world, who bring with them a huge diversity of beliefs, habits, ethics, prejudices, expectations, etc., throws them into the "melting pot", and within a few generations most are shaped into full blooded Americans. This rarely happens in Europe, where people move from country to country but rarely become countrymen. Steiner, a wonderful writer, relates his own experience as a young penniless immigrant who, after becoming successful, devoted his life to helping newcomers adjust, lecturing around the world and writing numerous books on immigration...

The life of American frontiersman, adventurer, and prospector "Swiftwater" Bill Gates as told by his mother in law. During the Klondike gold rush of the 1890's, Gates made and lost several fortunes. He once gave a dance house girl her weight in gold. His exploits in the Yukon are still talked about today.

“The sweat-shop was for me the cradle of liberty. . . It was my first university.” Attending lectures and the New York theatre at night; by day sewing sleeves into shirts in a ghetto shop, Marcus Eli Ravage (1884-1965) began his transformation from “alien” to American. His 1917 autobiography is a paean to the transformative power of education. Ravage emigrated from Rumania in 1900, at the age of 16. After working for several years as a “sleever” to save money, he enrolls in the University of Missouri (the least expensive school he can find), where culture shock overwhelms him at first...

This book is about Great inventors and what they created. It has different stories like Alexander Bell, Wrights, Morse, Gutenberg, and Edison. ON August 17, 1807, a curious crowd of people in New York gathered at a boat landing. Tied to the dock was a strange-looking craft. A smokestack rose above the deck. From the sides of the boat, there stood out queer shaped paddle wheels. Of a sudden, the clouds of smoke from the smokestack grew larger, the paddle wheels turned, and the boat, to the astonishment of all, moved...

Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491– 1556) was a Spanish knight from a local Basque noble family, hermit, priest since 1537, and theologian, who founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and was its first Superior General. After being seriously wounded in the Battle of Pamplona in 1521, he underwent a spiritual conversion while in recovery. De Vita Christi by Ludolph of Saxony purportedly inspired Loyola to abandon his previous military life and devote himself to labour for God. He died in July 1556, was beatified by Pope Paul V in 1609, canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622, and declared patron of all spiritual retreats by Pope Pius XI in 1922.

Robert Walpole, 1st Duke of Orford (1676-1745), is generally regarded as the first prime minister of Great Britain. This is a short biography of this important and controversial statesman by the British historian and anti-imperialist, John Morley (1838-1923).

This is Vol. 1, No. 44, Serial No. 44 of The Mentor, published in 1913. This edition of the Mentor Magazine focuses on six of England's most well-known poets - Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Shelley, William Wordsworth, Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning.

Wherever their ships took them, the Normans (Northman) were ruthless conquerors but gifted governors. These eight lectures, given in Boston in 1915 by the eminent Harvard medievalist, Charles Homer Haskins, chronicle the achievements of these descendants of the Vikings, whose genius for assimilation transformed them into French, English, and Sicilian citizens of well-run states. Haskins discusses the great William the Conqueror and Henry II, the impetuous Richard the Lion-Hearted, and the hapless King John. The Normans founded the Kingdom of Sicily in which there was religious toleration and a Saracen bureaucracy, and left us a moving picture of themselves in the Bayeux Tapestry.

Patience Worth is an examination of the communications between a seventeenth century woman and a certain Mrs. Curran of St. Louis, in 1913. Contact with the spirit world or parlor trick? If the latter, it was well done: the quick-witted repartee appeared unrehearsed, the language was authentic, the references to English nature and life accurate, although Mrs. Curran had never visited England. Mrs. Curran, herself, was a smart, quick-witted socialite of good repute, unlikely to have been a fraudster...

After having a difficult time establishing a career as a novelist, O’Donnell discovered to his happy surprise that the reading public was very interested in his hobby of chasing ghosts, which he called “Superphysical Research.” After this, he made a habit of buttonholing friends and strangers to find out what experiences they had had with spirits and phantasms. He happily volunteered to camp out overnight in houses known to be haunted, and he made a concerted effort to discover any unhappy events that had, perhaps, led a ghost to inhabit...

An analysis of Johann Sebastian Bach's life and musical compositions, and of the artistic, philosophical, and religious world in which he acted. (Introduction by Kathleen Norland)

François-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743-1803) rose to fame in 1791 during the Haitian struggle for independence. In this revolt, he led thousands of slaves on the island of Hispañola to fight against the colonial European powers of France, Spain and England. The former slaves ultimately established the independent state of Haiti and expelled the Europeans. L’Ouverture eventually became the governor and Commander-In-Chief of Haiti before recognizing and submitting to French rule in 1801...

A biography of Queen Elizabeth the First, the last monarch of the Tudors.

This book, published in 1920, analyzes the literary progression of Samuel Clemens and his shortcomings (which are debatable). Brooks attributes Clemens' increasing sense of pessimism to the repression of his creative spirit due largely to his mother and his wife.

John Jacob Astor was pre-eminently the opener of new paths, a breaker of trails. From his first tramp alone through the Black Forest of Baden, at sixteen, his life never lost this typical touch. In America, both shores of the Hudson, and the wilderness to the Northwest knew his trail. The trees of the forests west of the Mississippi were blazed by his hunters and trappers; and his partners and agents planted through this vast region the flag of the American Fur Company. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were invisibly lined by the path of his vessels...

Alexander Hamilton was a significant figure in the political and economic development of the early United States. He served in the American Revolutionary War and became an aide to General George Washington. He was one of the authors (along with John Jay and James Madison) of a series of essays know as The Federalist Papers, which were written in support of the ratification of the proposed Constitution. Scholars and others still refer to these essays to this day for interpretation of the Constitution...

A comic dialogue written in John Collier's idiosyncratic version of the 18th century South Lancashire dialect together with a collection of 19th century texts on Collier and his work. Egged on by Meary (Mary), Tummus (Thomas) recounts the series of misadventures that ensue when he makes a trip to Rochdale on an errand for his master. First published in 1746, the text grew over subsequent editions as Collier expanded the story, added a preface in which he berates publishers who had pirated his work, and inflated and amended his glossary...

A collection of interviews originally published in Moving Picture World that aims to give the movie-mad public "intimate pen pictures of the stars of the screen." Weitzel interviews some of the most renowned film stars of the 1920s: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Gloria Swanson, Pearl White, and more!

Daniel Boone was a great hunter, explorer, surveyor, and excellent rifleman; he knew Indians and fought them skillfully. His life was filled with adventures and, with this biography, Reuben Gold Thwaites takes us along on some of those adventures. An exciting read of one of America’s true historical heroes.

This little book was intended for the education of school children and includes tales, sketches and anecdotes of his life written for the children of the mid 1800's and written in the English languge of that period. Each chapter has numerous questions intended for the the reader or the teacher to quiz themselves to see if they gathered the pertinent information. The quiz questions will not be recorded. Also part of this book are numerous short essays written by Franklin on various topics. These entertaining and insightful samples occupy sections 17 through 27.

Geronimo (1829 – 1909) was a prominent leader of the Bedonkohe Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a battle with Mexican soldiers. After an attack by a company of Mexican soldiers killed his mother, wife and three children in 1858, Geronimo joined revenge attacks on the Mexicans. During his career as a war chief, he was notorious for consistently urging raids upon Mexican Provinces and their towns, and later against American locations across Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas.

Anthony (251-356CE) lived in Egypt, and became one of the fathers of Christian desert monasticism. When he was about 18 years old, and having inherited a large fortune, he heard a sermon about Jesus challenging the rich young ruler to "go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Matt 19:21) Antony immediately sold all he had, and went out into the desert to life a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. For the rest of his life, he fought demons, performed miracles, becoming a legend in his own long lifetime.

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), also widely known as the Red Baron, was a German fighter pilot with the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) during World War I. He is considered the top ace of that war, being officially credited with 80 air combat victories.Originally a cavalryman, Richthofen transferred to the Air Service in 1915, becoming one of the first members of Jasta 2 in 1916. He quickly distinguished himself as a fighter pilot, and during 1917 became leader of Jasta 11 and then the larger unit Jagdgeschwader 1 (better known as the "Flying Circus")...

An in depth look into the life of one of the greatest ever composers and musicians. Mozart was truly a gifted individual and this is an interesting look at both his family life and his musical career.

The Hound of Heaven stalks the death house in pursuit of the soul of a modern Dismas in this true story of a doomed criminal who found God in the solitude of a prison. The author, Father Raymond, was a Trappist monk from Gethsemani, Kentucky. He was a well known author of such books as "The Man Who Got Even With God", "The Family That Overtook Christ", and many others.

Twenty years ago, now, I attempted (but was not especially successful in the task) to establish upon the personal knowledge that my own residence as a pupil in the historical Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle, at Bruxelles gave me of the facts of Charlotte Brontë's relationships to Monsieur and Madame Heger, right impressions about the experiences and emotions she underwent between 1842 and 1846, and that supply the key and clue to the right interpretation of her genius. Every opinion I then ventured...

An authorized biography of D.W. Griffith, the self-proclaimed "Father of Filmmaking." Written in collaboration with the director, Robert Edgar Long's biographical sketch traces Griffith's early life, his career as an actor and stage director, his rise as one of Biograph's most acclaimed and innovative filmmakers, and the making of his revolutionary (and controversial) full-length films: [i]The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms,[/i] and other cinema classics.

One of Dante's earliest works, La vita nuova or La vita nova (The New Life) is in a prosimetrum style, a combination of prose and verse, and tells the story of his youthful love for Beatrice. The prose creates the illusion of narrative continuity between the poems; it is Dante's way of reconstructing himself and his art in terms of his evolving sense of the limitations of courtly love (the system of ritualized love and art that Dante and his poet-friends inherited from the Provençal poets, the Sicilian poets of the court of Frederick II, and the Tuscan poets before them)...

Charles A. Siringo was an American lawman, detective, and agent for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency during the late 19th century and early 20th century…. After taking part in several cattle drives, Siringo stopped herding to settle down, get married (1884), and open a merchant business in Caldwell, Kansas. He began writing a book, entitled A Texas Cowboy; Or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony. A year later, it was published, to wide acclaim, and became one of the first true looks into life as a cowboy written by someone who had actually lived the life.

John L. Ransom was the quartermaster of Company A, 9th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry during the American Civil War and a Union prisoner in the infamous Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia. This is his diary which he published some few years after the end of the Civil War. Note that in pages 193 through 301 are included 1) List of the Dead and 2) Recapitulation of Deaths By States; both of these sections are omitted from this Librivox reading. The Andersonville National Historic Site, located near Andersonville, Georgia, preserves the former Camp Sumter (also known as Andersonville Prison), a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp during the American Civil War…...

Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright who has had many of his works read into Librivox by volunteers. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition so innovative that many were to become technically possible to stage only with the advent of film. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature. The Growth of a Soul is Strindberg's own literary autobiography and recreation of the spirit of the times at Upsala University and his attempts to become a literary artist...

An English Girl's First Impressions of Burmah, by Beth Ellis, is a well-edited, turn-of-the-century journal documenting a young woman’s visit to Burma. The account documents her ocean voyage to Rangoon, and her stay in a small, jungle-embedded, European community in Remyo. The author, who travelled to Asia alone to visit her brother, is quick to laugh at her own exaggerated fears. She gives us a glimpse into the less-than-glamorous lives to Myanmar’s British occupiers. The book was published in 1899, just thirteen years after the conclusion of the third Anglo-Burmese war, when Britain took formal control of Myanmar and made it a province of India.

A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Carl August in 1782 after first taking up residence there in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. He was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe served as a member of the Duke's privy council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena...

“We had spent almost all our money for toll, ferrying and other expenses on the road. It might be a serious matter to be in a strange place without money . . . There is nothing we can spare so well as Dick. . . . It would not do to be sentimental under existing circumstances.” This is the practical pioneer woman Sarah Raymond Herndon writing in her journal about selling her horse to finance the final days of her family’s trek across the plains to Montana. However, when her brother, Hillhouse, actually sells her beloved pony, Sarah is distraught...

This "as told to" autobiography of Jules Turnour is based on a popular article that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1909. Turnour relates through Marcosson his personal history and that of the circus, both in Europe and the United States. By recounting touching, amusing, and heartbreaking events that he experienced or witnessed, he demonstrates his love of circus life and his craft. "As soon as I hear the music of the band...and the indescribable movement of the crowd toward the big tent...

Saint Rose of Lima, T.O.S.D. (April 20, 1586 – August 24, 1617), was a Spanish colonist in Lima, Peru, who became known for both her life of severe asceticism and her care of the needy of the city through her own private efforts. A lay member of the Dominican Order, she was the first person born in the Americas to be canonized by the Catholic Church.

April 14-15th, 2015, is the 150th year anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. This is a collection of pieces to mark that occasion. Whitman’s poems, written shortly after the death, express his intense grief. Here are prose pieces that Whitman composed in the years following. Included too are three other eulogies regarded by Lincoln scholars as among the best, as well as a narrative from one of the doctors who attended the dying president and two speeches in the British Parliament. And finally three of the President’s finest compositions. (

Written as a tribute to Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll after his death, by Isaac Newton Baker, his secretary of 14 years, and presented to the Ingersoll family. Later expanded and published by the family so the world could learn more about the public and private life, personality, work, thoughts and ideals of the most famous orator of the late 1800's, also dubbed "The Greatest Agnostic Of the Century".

From the Deep Woods to Civilization is the sequel to Indian Boyhood. Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) gives his account of what it was like to transition from the ways of his Inidan life to that of the white man. His father, long thought dead, had converted to Christianity and wished the same for his son as well as receiving education in the white man's school. At the age of 15, Ohiyesa must learn to balance the old familiar life of the American Indian with that of the new in the world of the white man, one of his first acts being the cutting of his long hair and attending school...

This volume contains the thirteen letters of the poet Dante Alighieri translated from their original Latin, including the famous and controversial letter to his patron Cangrande della Scala. The letters provide a good deal of context for the reader of Dante regarding his political and philosophical positions. In the final letter, the authenticity of which has been hotly contested by scholars, the author dedicates the Paradiso to the Veronese Cangrande, explains his Divine Comedy's title (then just Comedy), and discusses much of the work's content.

Saint Benedict of Nursia (c. 480 – 543 or 547) is honoured by the Catholic Church as the patron saint of Europe and students. Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, Italy (about 40 miles (64 km) to the east of Rome), before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy. One of his most well known achievement is his "Rule of Saint Benedict", containing precepts for his monks. He is often called the founder of western monasticism.

A biography of Jesse James as told by his son, Jesse James, Jr. We are treated to inside tales of Jesse's childhood and home life; what drove him to become a Confederate guerrilla during the Civil War; his life after the war and how he became a wanted man. Since it was written by his son, it is a little biased and we are not told anything about any crimes Jesse and his gang committed. Some of the stories of Jesse's war adventures are a little hard to believe, but a good read nonetheless.

This is a short introduction to Franz Schubert’s life and works. “…to give the casual radio listener a slight idea of Schubert’s inundating fecundity and inspiration. Like Bach, like Haydn, like Mozart, Schubert’s capacity for creative labor staggers the imagination… Volumes would not exhaust the wonder of his myriad creations. If this tiny book serves to heighten even a little the reader’s interest in such songs, symphonies, piano or chamber works of Schubert as come to his attention over the air it will have achieved the most that can be asked of it.” This book was published by The Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York.

The poignant biography of Saint Macrina, by her brother, Saint Gregory of Nyssa. (The Reader)“The use of the word "philosophy" to designate Christianity is common in the writings of the fourth century, ... It is employed in a twofold sense, of the Christian religion generally and of asceticism in particular.” (from the 2nd footnote of the narrated text.)

Written by Millicent Garrett, a noted British feminist, suffragist and intellectual writer, this volume is comprised of short biographical sketches of 23 influential women from Jane Austen and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Queen Victoria and Queen Louisa of Prussia.

Benjamin F Hasson was a Union officer in the Civil War of the United States. After being captured by the Confederacy, he escaped from a prison train taking prisoners to the infamous Andersonville prison. The short book points up Hasson’s ingenuity in overcoming obstacles to his flight to Union lines but also shows an insight into the lives of Southern blacks, both slave and free. This oral version omits the last section of his book, which is a list of men captured from his regiment and their fates. ( david wales)

"Warren Hastings" is Chapter IV of Thomas Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays, vol. III. It first appeared in the Edinburgh Review of October 1841 as a review of Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of Bengal. Compiled from Original Papers, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M. A. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1841. This essay on is generally considered to be one of the finest by the great historian and great literary stylist, Thomas Babington Macalay. Macaulay himself served in India...

The poacher of these "Confessions" was no imaginary being. Following in his father's and forefather's footsteps, he learnt from an early age the practical skills of poaching and woodcraft. It was, however, Mother Nature that made old "Phil" a Poacher but she also made him a Sportsman and a Naturalist at the same time. Never did any man appear in closer sympathy with the wild creatures about him. Even when about eighty years of age, there was still some of the old erectness in his carriage; some of the old fire in his eyes...

A study of the black patriots of the American Revolution, with introductions by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Wendell Phillips.

Klemens von Metternich first foreign minister, and then chancellor of the Austrian Empire was a great diplomat: crafty, manipulative, and single-minded in his determination to overthrow Napoleon and his revolutionary ideals and to reestablish the European monarchical system. In this short 1888 biography, the British officer, Colonel G. B. Malleson, describes how the charming, aristocratic Metternich devoted countless hours to winning Napoleon's trust and to buying time for his country, until a rearmed Austria, at the head of the Sixth Coalition, was able to defeat the still-formidable Corsican...

Robert Sherard was Oscar Wilde's friend of 20 years and first biographer. The Life of Oscar Wilde was the second of his four biographies of the Irish playwright and wit. - Summary by Rob Board

Autobiography, written by David Crockett about 2 years before his death at the Alamo in March of 1836. - Summary by Bill2147

A Glimpse of India: being a collection of extracts from the letters Dr. Clara A. Swain, first medical missionary to India of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. - Summary from the book's introduction

Plutarch's Lives is a series of fifty biographies of famous Greek and Roman men written around 100 AD. In Our Young Folks' Plutarch, Rosalie Kaufman has adapted these biographies for young readers. In the preface she writes, “The lives which we here present in a condensed simple form are prepared from those of Plutarch. Plutarch says, ‘It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories, but lives.’ This is why anecdotes, short sayings or a word or two of repartee are frequently recorded...

Ibn Battuta , was a Moroccan explorer. Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands. His journeys included trips to North Africa, West Africa, the Horn of Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China. Battuta is generally considered one of the greatest travellers of all time. This is a journal/record of his travels, omitting the translator's note and preface. NOTE: The material contains racial terms and ideas that are objectionable today. The final section speaks of cannibalism with the natives as the victims, for example.

When Henry Stanley was in Africa , he met a king named Mutesa. This king had started believing his tribe's Ugandan traditions about spirits and devils. Then some Arabs came through and Mutesa converted to Islam. When Mr. Stanley came and told Mutesa about God, Mutesa became a Christian and asked Mr. Stanley to get the English to send back missionaries so he and his tribe could learn more about God. Alexander Mackay was one of those courageous men who answered the call.

This is a collection of broadsides from London. Broadsides are short, popular publications, a precursor to today's tabloid journalism. The collection contains sensationalist and sometimes comical stories about criminal conduct, love, the Royal Family, politics, as well as gallows' literature. Gallow's literature were often sold at the execution. As a collection these broadsides are a reminder of how important the printer was at this time -- it is surely no coincidence that the printers are printed at the end of every broadside, while the authors remain anonymous. - Summary by kathrinee

This Book is about the Men Who Found America and how it started - Summary by Elijah

Constantine Panunzio begins his autobiography by describing his childhood in Molfetta, Italy. At age 13, he left home as a sailor, landing in Boston in 1902. His trials finding work, learning English, and securing an education in the U.S. were many, but eventually, he became administrator of a social service agency in Boston. During WWI, he served as head of the YMCA on the Italian front. Concerned throughout his career with the treatment and assimilation of immigrants, Panuncio criticized the post world War I hysteria about alien radicals in his book The Deportation Cases of 1919-1920. - Summary by Sue Anderson

This recording contains two early biographies of Dante, both written by notable Florentine literati. Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian poet, most famous for his monumental collection of tales, The Decameron. Like Dante, Boccacio was one of the first writers to use the Italian vernacular. Lionardo Bruni was an accredited historian and man of letters. His short biography was inspired by reading the version of Dante's life by Boccaccio, who he considered had mispresented Dante by over-emphasizing the influence of his association with Beatrice...

R. G. "Dick" Barlow was one of the most accomplished all-round cricketers of the late 19th Century. For many years he opened the batting with A. N. Hornby for Lancashire and England, often acting as a "stonewaller" who "carried his bat through the innings" while his teammates hit out for runs. He also excelled with the ball and delights in telling his readers how he dismissed his contemporary W. G. Grace more often than most. Barlow's 40 years in club, county, and test cricket are recounted with an attention to detail befitting a first class cricketer and umpire...

A history of Florence Nightingale , the founder of modern nursing. Here's the definitive biography, gleaned from a lifetime of her notes, letters and writings, that goes way beyond the mere legend of "The Lady With The Lamp", and the "Founder Of Modern Nursing". This well written saga covers the vastly more expanded story of her development into an intelligent woman with a high purpose, her social standing and family connections that opened many doors for her, her extensive work after the Crimean War working with governments to develop better health care delivery systems to the indigent in England and in India, and her voluminous writings on numerous topics...

In this second volume, Hodges uses stories of the lives of fourteen well-known saints and heroes of the faith to continue the history of the church from the end of the Reformation through the 1700s. These stories recount their lives and sacrifices for the faith. These saints and heroes include: Luther, More, Loyola, Cranmer, Calvin, Knox, Coligny, William the Silent, Brewster, Laud, Cromwell, Bunyan, Fox, and Wesley. Appropriate and beneficial for children and adults! - Summary by Maggie Travers

A fast-paced, somewhat racey look into the life, accomplishments and idiosyncrasies of Benjamin Franklin. Acclaimed biographer Paul L. Ford uses Franklin’s letters, papers and journals to step us through Franklin's many adventures, to reveal intimate details of his personal life - relations with siblings, wife, children, friends, business partners; his physique, health, illnesses, schooling, personal habits and goals; his opinions on education, philosophy, religion, friendship, industry; his library; his career as printer and publisher, writer and journalist, politician and diplomat, scientist, humorist, jack of all trades; and his relations at home and abroad with the “fairer sex“...

"It has long been a desideratum to have in English the early narratives, of the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi. Marquette's map and voyage have indeed appeared, but the narrative varies in no small degree from the authentic manuscript, and the map is not at all a copy of that still preserved, as it came from the hand of the great explorer. These published from original manuscripts, and accompanied by the narratives of the missionaries in La Salle's expedition, are now first presented in an accessible shape, and complete the annals of the exploration...

Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving lives contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman, as well as four unpaired, single lives. Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, as such, but in exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. The first pair of lives the Epaminondas-Scipio Africanus no longer exists, and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers...

Abraham Lincoln: A History is an 1890 ten-volume account of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, written by John Nicolay and John Hay, who were his personal secretaries during the American Civil War. Volume 3 chronicles Lincoln's life from his election in 1860 through April, 1861.

Harriet Beecher Stowe , of Cincinnati, was the most famous female American author of her age, and is said to have touched off the American Civil War with her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin , awakening the whole world to the harsh conditions of slavery. She wrote 30 other successful books depicting life in early America, plus collections of well written articles and travellogues, poems, hymns, and speeches on social issues. Harriet's father and all 7 of her brothers were ministers, her 5 sisters teachers and/or social activists, a whole family concerned with improving society...

William Shakespeare: actor, poet, playwright. He is often called England's greatest writer, the Bard of Avon, a national treasure. But who was he? An average boy, born to an average family of the period; a romantic and dreamer, tempted away from his rural home by the sights and sounds of the big city. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, here is one of the many studies of the bard's life and works.

Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu , the dreaded red eminence, mentor and manager of Louis XIII, skilled in logistics, he subdued in battle the unruly Huguenot aristocracy, successfully resisted France's encirclement by the Hapsburg Empire, and laid the foundation for the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. - Summary by Pamela Nagami

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, liberal prime minister , wrote this short biography of William Pitt, the Younger , the controversial young prime minister who led Great Britain during the terrible trial of the Napoleonic Wars. Lord Rosebery writes: "From the dead eighteenth century his figure still faces us with a majesty of loneliness and courage. There may have been men both abler and greater than he, though it is not easy to cite them; but in all history there is no more patriotic spirit, none more intrepid, and none more pure."

"Relates the story of Raleigh from his boyhood days on the coast of Devonshire, to his exploits in Ireland and his unexpected entry into the court of Queen Elizabeth. We travel with him as he pursues the ships of the Spanish Armada and makes voyages to the New World in search of gold and lands to settle. We see his efforts come to naught and hear how he is relegated to the Tower of London where he spends the last years of his life. Includes the fabled story of the velvet cloak and the role Raleigh played in introducing potatoes and tobacco to the Old World...

By the time of his death in 1740, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, had done everything possible to secure the succession to the throne of his daughter, Maria Theresa, but practically nothing to train her how to rule. Nevertheless, Maria Theresa managed by common sense, charm, and expert advice to negotiate a forty-year reign marked by secret diplomacy, shifting alliances, relentless warfare, and ruthless realpolitik. This short biography by the Oxford historian, James Franck Bright, describes her first thirty years on the throne.

Abraham Lincoln: A History is an 1890 ten-volume account of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, written by John Nicolay and John Hay, who were his personal secretaries during the American Civil War. Volume 4 chronicles Lincoln's life from April to November 1861.

Charlemagne c. 742-814 was King of the Franks, conqueror of Lombard Italy, and on Christmas day 800, was crowned by Pope Leo III as the first Holy Roman Emperor. The author tells us that he "was a man of commanding presence, more than six feet high, with large and lustrous eyes, a rather long nose, a bright and cheerful countenance, and a fine head of hair." Charles was a just ruler, a lover of learning and of women . He was a strong supporter of the Church and of the Pope, whose divisive territorial rule in Italy he helped to establish...

Aliases. Fraudsters. Confidence tricksters. People pretending to be what they are not, for financial, political or personal gain. Fiction is filled with them to entertain us; but would not be anywhere near as believable if such people had not, in reality, existed since time immemorial. In this work, the famous Bram Stoker throws light on just a few such people, who have tricked their way into the annals of history. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

A biography of the famous and popular poet-naturalist, author, philosopher, historian, written by a family friend who spent time with Thoreau almost daily during the last seven years of his life and who knew and talked with members of his family. Written shortly after his death, it was immediately popular and this later edition gained a new audience.

This collection of the 258 known, publicly-printed interviews of Mark Twain was compiled by Gary Scharnhorst and published by the University of Alabama Press. The interviews are in the Public Domain, and our thanks go to Gary Scharnhorst and the University of Alabama for making them available for this Public Domain audio recording. They were compiled in the University of Alabama Press book entitled "Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews" and are arranged, chronologically, from Twain's first authenticated interview in 1871, to his last interview in 1910...

Full titled History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni, this small journal was a travel narrative kept by the English Romantic authors Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. They describe two trips, both taken by Mary, Percy, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont: one across Europe in 1814, and one to Lake Geneva in 1816. Divided into three sections, the text consists of a journal, four letters, and Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc". Apart from the poem, the text was primarily written and organized by Mary Shelley. - Summary by 1817

Philip Augustus , grandfather of Saint Louis, was one of France's greatest kings. While England's Henry II was locked in combat with his rebellious offspring, Philip and his loyal son, Louis, steadily consolidated the scattered territories of their little kingdom. In this short, but vivid history we meet King Philip, now riding, at the behest of the imperious Pope Innocent III, with his spurned wife, Ingeborgis, behind him on the saddle, now impetuously flying at his enemies at the Battle of Bouvines...

A collection of sparkling gossipy biographical pieces of Aubrey's contemporaries, including Bacon, Jonson and Shakespeare, Brief Lives' glimpses into the unofficial side of these towering figures has won it an undying popularity, with Ruth Scurr's recent reimagined "autobiography" of Aubrey, breathing new life into this classic for the next generation of readers. - Summary by Nicole Lee

Grant Allen was an anthropologist, scientific writer, novelist and poet, though the biographer and writer Frank Harris has said of him that "He could be described with more 'ists' than anyone else I ever saw. He was an atheist and pacifist and socialist, a botanist and zoologist and optimist, a chemist and physicist, a scientist of scientists, a monist, meliorist and hedonist…". As a novelist, he is noted as a pioneer in both the detective and science fiction genres. He was born in Canada but spent the latter part of his life in England...

The Lives of the Queens of England is a multi-volumed work attributed to Agnes Strickland, though it was mostly researched and written by her sister Elisabeth. These volumes give biographies of the queens of England from the Norman Conquest in 1066. Although by today's standards, it is not seen as a very scholarly work, the Stricklands used many sources that had not been used before.Volume seven includes the biography of Elizabeth I, from 1587 to her death in 1603, and Anne of Denmark.

Horace Walpole, 4th earl of Orford, was a cultivated participant in, and observer of, the social and political life of Georgian England. His charming and witty letters are valuable pictures of the age. "A man so blessed that he could unfold every gift, every foible, whose long life spreads like a great lake reflecting houses and friends and wars and snuff boxes and revolutions and lap dogs, the great and the little, all intermingled, and behind them a stretch of the serene blue sky." Virginia Woolf.

Guilio Raimondo , Richelieu's designated successor as chief minister of France, was a master of diplomacy. Though a cardinal, he was not a priest and was probably secretly married to the Queen-Mother, Anne of Austria. Together they ruled France, facing the great rebellion known as the Fronde, and with the help of the military genius of Turenne, prevailed over the armies of Spain, Austria, and the traitorous Grand Condé. Arthur Hassall writes of Mazarin that by the time of his death in 1661 he had, through "patience, perseverance, and sagacity," fulfilled Richelieu's foreign policy and made the twenty-one year-old Louis XIV the absolute monarch of Europe's greatest power.

Published in 1845, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself was written in response to critics who questioned the authenticity of the experiences Douglass drew on as a prominent abolitionist speaker. Douglass begins by describing his earliest memories, including his “entrance to the hell of slavery” through the “blood-stained gate” of his Aunt Hester’s brutal beating, and goes on to tell of his painstaking acquisition of literacy, climactic fistfight with Edward Covey, imprisonment in the wake of a thwarted escape attempt, and flight north, first to New York, where he marries Anna Murray, and ultimately to New Bedford, Massachusetts...

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey will always be remembered as the Lord Chancellor who fell from power when he failed to obtain the annulment of King Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The eminent British historian, Mandell Creighton, writes that Wolsey was branded by Tudor historians as "the minion of the Pope, and the upholder of a foreign despotism." But the publication in the nineteenth century of the mass of documents relating to the reign of Henry VIII made possible a truer assessment of the visionary schemes of the great cardinal and of his underlying patriotism...

A portrait of Harriet Tubman is scheduled to replace that of Andrew Jackson on the front of the U.S. $20 bill in 2020. Sarah H. Bradford, who knew Tubman personally, wrote these scenes from Tubman's extraordinary life in 1869. - Summary by Sue Anderson

"Few women have worked so faithfully for the cause of humanity as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin [1759-1797], and few have been the objects of such censure...The young were bidden not to read her books, and the more mature warned not to follow her example, the miseries she endured being declared the just retribution of her actions." So begins this short, vivid biography of Mary Wollstonecraft by the American expatriate author, Elizabeth Robins Pennell. We read how Wollstonecraft's father, an unstable, irascible, and often violent alcoholic squandered his fortune and dragged his large family from lodging to lodging...

Otto von Bismarck famously said, "The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches or the decisions of the majority...but by iron and blood." Prince Bismarck unified the German states under Prussian hegemony through a series of carefully orchestrated wars, which excluded Austria from the new Confederation and added Schleswig-Holstein, and Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. But Bismarck avoided useless confrontations and was, above all, a master of balance of power diplomacy. His skills, both at home and abroad, won him the loyal support of Kaiser Wilhelm I...

The book is a biography of Abraham Lincoln with emphasis on how his personality and beliefs impacted the history of the American Emancipation and its causes. The book is very well written, easy to read and includes incredible historical information being written by a man who was there during the civil war. He even fought in the war and was able to add his insight into the happenings from his own perspective. This book would add knowledge to anyone who really wants to know the truth about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. - Summary by philip chenevert

Compared with the unimaginable richness of his inner life as the overpowering volume and splendor of his works reveal it, Bach’s day-to-day existence seems almost pedestrian.... The present volume, which advances no claim whatever to any new or original slant, aims to do no more than furnish for those who read and run a meager background of a few isolated highspots in Bach’s outward life and a momentary sideglance at a tiny handful of his supreme creations. Its object will have been more than accomplished if in any manner it stimulates a radio listener to deepen his acquaintance with Bach’s immeasurable art. - Summary by Author's Foreword

Included in this little book are analyses and backgrounds of most of Tschaikowsky’s standard concert music. A short sketch of Tschaikowsky’s life precedes the section devoted to the orchestral music. Yet, the personal outlook and moods of Russia’s great composer are so inextricably bound up with his music, that actually the whole booklet is an account of his strangely tormented life. In the story of Tschaikowsky, life and art weave into one closely knit fabric. It is hoped that this simple narrative will aid music lovers to glimpse the great pathos and struggle behind the music of this sad and lonely man. - Summary by Author's Foreword

Haydn, barring a few hardships in his youth, lived an extraordinarily fortunate life and had abundant reason for the optimism which marked every step of his progress.... Haydn was a master by the grace of Heaven and a servant only by the artificial conventions of a temporary social order... About the vast number of symphonies, the magnificent string quartets, the clavier works, the songs there can here be no question. - Summary by Author's Foreword

Handel’s long career resembles a gigantic tapestry, so bewilderingly crowded with detail, so filled with turmoil and vicissitude, with vast achievements, extremes of good and ill fortune, and unending comings and goings that any attempt to force even a small part of it into the frame of a tiny, unpretentious booklet of the present sort is as hopeless as it is presumptuous.... Handel was time and again a composer of exquisitely delicate colorations, and sensuous style, not to say a largely unsuspected master of many subtle intricacies of rhythm...

How much more futile is it to attempt on the minuscule scale of the following tiny, if rambling, pamphlet to touch upon even a thousandth of those achievements and unremitting conflicts which entered into the texture of this master’s agitated and inharmonious life! Actually, it aims to do no more than contribute a mite toward a larger interest in the writings and the great mass of insufficiently discovered compositions of a Romanticist whose labors are still surprisingly unrecognized art works of the future.

Jesse Harding Pomeroy was only 12 years old when he was arrested for the assault of 7 boys near his home in the South Boston area of Massachusetts. He was sent to reform school for a year and released. Shortly after his release, the body of a young boy was found mutilated almost beyond recognition. Then the body of a young girl was discovered in the basement of the building which Jesse's mother had rented to run her small dressmaking shop. Jesse would be tried and found guilty of the two murders when he was but 14 years of age, and thus has been referred to as "America's youngest serial killer"...

In the compass of the present pamphlet it is impossible to give more than a cursory survey of Mendelssohn’s happy but extraordinarily crowded life. He was only slightly less prolific a composer than such masters as Bach, Mozart or Schubert, even if he did not reach the altitude of their supreme heights. But irrespective of the quality of much of his output, the sheer mass of it is astounding, the more so when we consider the extent of his travels and the unceasing continuity of his professional and social activities, which immensely exceeded anything of the kind in the career of Schubert or Bach. - Summary by Author's Foreword

There was not much truly spectacular about the course of [Strauss's] life, which was most happily free from the material troubles which bedeviled the existence of so many great masters... If “Salome” and “Elektra”, “Ein Heldenleben” and “Till Eulenspiegel” were in their day scandalously “sensational” did not the whirligig of time reveal them as incontestable products of genius, irrespective of inequalities and flaws? However Richard Strauss compares in the last analysis with this or that master he contributed to the language of music idioms, procedures and technical accomplishments typical of the confused years and conflicting ideals out of which they were born...