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Biographies — page 63
3,136 public-domain biographies books, summarised. Page 63 of 66.
The British Association's Visit to Montreal, 1884
Rayleigh, Clara, Lady
The British Association for the Advancement of Science travels to North America, crossing the Atlantic to bridge continents with the weight of Victorian intellect and curiosity.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 284, November 24, 1827
Various
An engaging blend of historical reporting, popular verse, practical science, and theatrical fiction captures the vibrant pulse of early nineteenth-century British print culture.
The Story of Garfield: Farm-boy, Soldier, and President
William G. (William Gunion) Rutherford
The life of James A. Garfield serves as a testament to the American ideal, tracing a journey from a log cabin in the Ohio wilderness to the highest office in the nation. This biography explores how humble beginnings, a devotion to education, and unwavering moral integrity forged a man who would eventually lead his…
A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786)
John Courtenay
The death of Samuel Johnson in 1784 sparked an immediate, fevered scramble to define the legacy of a man whose life was as complex as his prose. This poem serves as one of the earliest and most balanced attempts to capture that immense, contradictory spirit.
Historic Court Memoirs of France: An Index
Various
This collection offers a sweeping, multi-generational tour of French power, capturing the intimate scandals and grand political shifts that defined the nation’s royal history. It serves as an essential, sprawling record of a vanishing world.
Memoirs of Madame la Marquise de Montespan
Madame de Montespan
A sharp-tongued aristocrat recounts the fading splendor of her reign at the court of Louis XIV, documenting the relentless rise of her rival and the intricate, often cruel, mechanics of royal favor.
Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2
George S. (George Sewall) Boutwell
The life of a statesman is a long conversation with history, and these reflections offer a front-row seat to the turbulent decades that forged the modern American Republic.
The Childhood of Distinguished Women
Selina A. Bower
These biographical sketches trace the formative years of notable women, emphasizing the intersection of their early intellectual development, their religious convictions, and the domestic spheres they inhabited.
The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox
Charles E. (Charles Eugene) Morris
A leader must be a doer of the work, not merely a listener to promises.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
The private observations of a rising government official, this record offers an unvarnished window into the Restoration of the English monarchy. It remains a singular achievement for its blend of administrative detail and startlingly honest self-portraiture.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A man of immense curiosity and restless ambition records the pulse of a transforming nation, finding as much significance in the details of a quiet evening as in the tremors of the state. These pages capture the singular tension of a life lived at the intersection of public duty and private desire.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A private record of a life lived in the corridors of power, this work captures the fleeting anxieties, petty triumphs, and enduring appetites of a man navigating the Restoration court. It is a mirror held up to the mundane and the momentous alike.
Famous Affinities of History: The Romance of Devotion. Volume 4
Lyndon Orr
These biographical sketches explore the intimate, often turbulent, personal lives of iconic literary figures. By peering behind the public masks of authors and poets, the narrative reveals the profound influence of their private devotion and disillusionment.
Heroes of the Great Conflict
James Harrison Wilson
A seasoned military commander examines the life and thwarted potential of a brilliant contemporary, offering an unflinching look at the inner tensions of the Union high command during the Civil War.
Charles Edward Putney: An Appreciation
Charles E. Putney Memorial Association
This collection of tributes captures the life of a dedicated Vermont educator, documenting how one man’s quiet commitment to his students and his community left a lasting impression on generations. It is a portrait of a life built on service, scholarship, and enduring kindness.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A man of extraordinary public duty and private frailty captures the pulse of a nation in flux, recording his own domestic turmoil alongside the shifting fortunes of an empire.
Experience of a Confederate States Prisoner: Being an Ephemeris Regularly Kept by an Officer of the Confederate States Army
Beckwith West
HOOK This diary captures the raw, daily realities of a Confederate officer held captive by Union forces, offering a rare glimpse into the intense ideological fervor and physical hardships of the American Civil War.
Lloyd George: The Man and His Story
Frank Dilnot
A whirlwind of political ambition and relentless energy, this portrait captures the ascent of a small-town boy who dared to challenge the British establishment and ultimately command the nation during its hour of greatest peril.
Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student
S. C. (Simon Christian) Hammer
A brilliant young Scandinavian scholar absorbs the intellectual freedom of Enlightenment Britain and returns to transform the literature of his homeland.
My Memory of Gladstone
Goldwin Smith
A man of immense energy and contradiction, this towering political figure is examined through the lens of a contemporary observer who witnessed his rise, his mastery, and his eventual, divisive decline.
Washington in Domestic Life. From Original Letters and Manuscripts
Richard Rush
The private correspondence of a nation’s founder reveals the meticulous, orderly man hidden behind the public monument. These intimate letters offer an unvarnished look at the daily anxieties of managing a household while leading a young republic.
An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut: detailing the distressing events of the expedition against Quebec, under the command of Col. Arnold in the year 1775
Abner Stocking
A harrowing, firsthand account of the 1775 American expedition to Quebec, this narrative traces a soldier’s transformation from a zealous patriot into a survivor of starvation, imprisonment, and defeat.
James Cutbush, an American Chemist, 1788-1823
Edgar Fahs Smith
This account preserves the memory of a modest, industrious pioneer whose early nineteenth-century work bridged the gap between theoretical chemistry and the practical needs of a young, developing nation.
John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records
William Wallace Tooker
HOOK This historical recovery reconstructs the life of a seminal Indigenous interpreter who bridged the linguistic and cultural divide during the early colonial settlement of Long Island.
The Life of Col. James Gardiner
Religious Tract Society (Great Britain)
The soldier’s life often ends in the field, but here the most significant battle occurs in the silence of a midnight chamber. This record documents a transformation from a reckless life to one of disciplined devotion.
The Life of That Wonderful and Extraordinarily Heavy Man, Daniel Lambert: From His Birth to the Moment of His Dissolution
Anonymous
A gentle, inquisitive record of a man defined by his physical scale, this account observes a life lived in the public eye with surprising humanity and grace. It captures the quiet dignity of a person transformed into a spectacle.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A candid window into the Restoration, this record captures the monumental shift of a nation alongside the minute, restless details of a single human life. It remains an unparalleled document of seventeenth-century English identity.
Fifty years with the Revere Copper Co.: A Paper Read at the Stockholders' Meeting held on Monday 24 March 1890
S. T. (Samuel Thomas) Snow
This commemorative address chronicles the half-century evolution of a pivotal American manufacturing institution, documenting its transition from early artisanal roots to the industrial maturity of the late nineteenth century.
The Life of Mr. Richard Savage: Who was Condemn'd with Mr. James Gregory, the last Sessions at the Old Baily, for the Murder of Mr. James Sinclair, at Robinson's Coffee-house at Charing-Cross
Unknown
A bastardized son of the nobility spends his youth cast off by his wealthy mother, turns to writing plays for bread, and suddenly finds himself sentenced to hang for a midnight tavern brawl.
Venerable Philippine Duchesne: A Brief Sketch of the Life and Work of the Foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart in America
G. E. M.
The life of a woman who traded the comforts of French nobility for the rugged, often brutal frontier of 19th-century America, this account captures a relentless pursuit of faith against overwhelming odds.
William Black: The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada
John MacLean
A young pioneer navigates the rugged wilderness of late 18th-century Canada, driven by an unyielding conviction that transforms the spiritual landscape of the Maritime Provinces into a burgeoning missionary frontier.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A man of modest means documents his daily life, capturing the tremors of a nation on the brink of monarchy’s restoration while balancing the mundane details of his own rising career.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
A private man’s record of seventeenth-century London, this chronicle offers an unparalleled, unvarnished window into the daily life of a high-ranking naval official during the Restoration. It is a portrait of a man obsessed with his own ascent, his domestic comforts, and the relentless, often absurd, machinery of…
Four American Leaders
Charles William Eliot
A calm, measured evaluation of character shows how personal virtues, practical intelligence, and quiet spiritual independence build the durable foundations of a free republic.
General Gordon, Saint and Soldier
Joseph Wardle
A life of extraordinary military genius and radical Christian humility collides with the shifting demands of nineteenth-century imperial power.
John M. Synge: a Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes
John Masefield
A quiet observer of human nature finds his voice in the rugged landscapes of the Aran Islands, leaving behind a legacy defined by artistic integrity and a deep, unsentimental love for the raw texture of life.
Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency
Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
The sun never sets on a court where every gesture is a calculated move in an endless, invisible game of power. Behind the gilded splendor of Versailles, a master observer records the quiet malice and grand follies of a fading age.
Over the Falls
Annie Edson Taylor
Driven by impending poverty and an iron determination, an aging schoolteacher constructs a custom wooden barrel and casts herself into the terrifying current above Niagara Falls.
The life, trial and conversations of Robert Emmet, Esq., leader of the Irish insurrection of 1803
Anonymous
The life of a young idealist culminates in a failed insurrection and a final, defiant speech that echoes through Irish history. This account preserves the legacy of a man whose dream of liberty outlived his execution.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 263, Supplementary Number (1827)
Various
This historical chronicle charts the meteoric rise and inevitable fall of a singular emperor, capturing both the brutality of his revolutionary origins and the profound solitude of his final exile.
The Spirit of Lafayette
James Mott Hallowell
A champion of the French and American Revolutions serves as the enduring symbol for a global struggle against autocracy. This call to action frames the defense of democracy as a moral imperative across the ages.
A sketch of the life and services of Gen. Otho Holland Williams: Read before the Maryland historical society, on Thursday
Osmond Tiffany
This portrait of a Revolutionary War hero captures the quiet resolve of a man who traded the counting-house for the battlefield, leaving behind a legacy of integrity and military precision in the face of brutal conflict.
Colonel Edward Buncombe, Fifth North Carolina Continental Regiment: His Life, Military Careeer, and Death While a Wounded Prisoner in Philadelphia During the War of the Revolution
Marshall De Lancey Haywood
Edward Buncombe, a gentleman of the colonial era, leaves behind a legacy of Revolutionary sacrifice and a name that has become a permanent part of the American landscape.
Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, during the War of the Revolution
Charles Hersey
This chronicle traces the grueling path of a revolutionary soldier who left his home in Worcester to secure American independence, only to return to a life of hardship and premature decline.
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 19, November 7, 1840
Various
This nineteenth-century miscellany acts as a vibrant cultural snapshot, preserving the folklore, social critiques, and curiosities that shaped the Irish consciousness and its transatlantic connections during a transformative era.
The Life of Saint Columba, Abbot, and Apostle of the Northern Picts
Anonymous
The life of an early medieval saint unfolds here, tracing his journey from an Irish upbringing to the foundation of a remote, influential monastic outpost among the northern Picts.
A Confederate surgeon's letters to his wife
Spencer Glasgow Welch
A surgeon’s intimate, unvarnished correspondence reveals the grueling, hungry reality of life in the Confederate Army, from the chaos of the front lines to the quiet longing for home.
A Letter to the Loving and Beloved People of the Parish of Madeley, and Its Vicinity, Who Have Lost a Friend to Piety in the Death of Mrs. Fletcher, Widow of the Rev. J. W. Fletcher, (or de la Flechere,) Late Vicar of Madeley, Shropshire
Mary Tooth
A devoted companion bears witness to the final days of a beloved spiritual mentor, capturing the transition of a life lived entirely for the service of others and the glory of the divine.