Great short biographies of the world [antikvár]

frejace THE preparation of this book was a delightful adventure, which I was forced to bring to an end too soon: if it had not been for sober considerations of proportion, size, price, announced date of publication and the unreasonable demand of my publishers, I should at this moment be still in pursuit of more biographies. But even publishers are entitled to some consideration, and I have finally turned over to mine the MS of more than seven hundred thousand words, written by many hands, during a period of two thousand years. During the past year and a half I have read some thousands of short biographies, and my wife has investigated almost as many for me. Together we have passed in review most of what seemed likely to prove suitable among the works written in English, French, and German, and a good part of what has been translated into those tongues from the Latin, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. I had at first intended to group my biographies according to a strict system of classification, according to countries, races, and periods. Such a system may have its uses, but I am inclined to think it misleading; for that reason I have adopted a very simple device, a convenience at most, to the reader who may wish to create his own background for the subject of any given biography. Supposing I had attempted to subdivide my collection upon a basis of nationality? Should this be done by considering the author, or the subject? Where, for instance, should I have put Macaulay's Frederick the Great, under England, or under Germany? In the 18th, or in the 19th Century? Supposing I had solved this problem, would anyone be the gainer? The essay is a picture, description, history, interpretation, biography, of a man, set within the framework of his day and environment. If this is well done, is anything else very important? I have brought together here what I call Short Biographies. Now, the short biography has not yet been so arbitrarily defined nor so closely analysed as the short story, let us say, or the drama. You may, if you like, subdivide all the biographies in this volume into as many types and species as you like, and call each by a separate name. There is no objection to classifying them as prefaces, essays, memoirs, reminiscences, sketches, poems, psychographs, portraits, or critical analyses. I have taken the word biography to mean something written about a person, and in selecting short biographies I have necessarily omitted books like Boswell's Johnson, Car- vii