Showing results for "Autobiographie" in Literary History & Criticism

When Henry Stanley (the famous journalist who went to find David Livingstone) 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. (Summary by Esther ben Simonides)

An autobiography of Helen Keller published when the author was still in her early 20's. The narrative reveals how her mind developed and matured until she began her studies at Radcliffe College (Summary by George Cooney)

The Confessions outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1,000 years, through the Middle Ages. It is not a complete autobiography, as it was written in his early 40s, and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work (City of God). It does, nonetheless, provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant...

Beaumarchais – Watchmaker, music teacher, politician, opportunist, publisher, secret agent for Louis XVI, yet fomenter of revolution in both France and America – and yet again imprisoned for being an enemy of the Revolution. . . Friend of Voltaire, libertarian, arms dealer, and dramatist whose famous Figaro trio of satirical plays reflects the dissolution of Medieval society and torturous emergence of a new democratic era. This biography by John Rivers was originally published in 1922. (Summary by Lynette Caulkins)

Col. Ingersoll begins his lectures on famous people as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One of the most famous orators of his day, a contemporary and personal friend of Mark Twain and General Grant, ...

The following work gives within a short compass a history of Oliver Cromwell from a biographical point of view. The text has been revised by the author. (From the preface to the 1909 edition) This biography considers closely both the actions and the motivations of Oliver Cromwell in the many roles he took on during his life. Gardiner is careful to put Cromwell into the context of his times -- turbulent, volatile and disorienting -- as the three Kingdoms of the Stuart dynasty were torn by bitter internal strife as well as making war upon each other. The author gives close attention to how ...

Boswell's famous work on the life of his admired friend Johnson, the formidable poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, is a milestone in the development of biographical writing, a treasure-house of Johnson's witticisms and opinions, and a window on his social circle that is packed with incidental detail of 18th-century life and concerns.This second of four volumes covers the years 1764-1776. (Summary by Philippa)

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. ( Summary adapted from wikipedia by Ann Boulais)

This collection of the 258 known, publicly-printed interviews of Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) 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. Here's how ...

When Helen Keller's autobiography was first published in 1903, she was a young woman studying at Radcliffe College. In it, Helen shares memories of her childhood, describes how Miss Sullivan helped her learn how to communicate, and reflects on her experiences as a college student. This audiobook is divided into a three-part special edition. The first part is Helen's autobiography. The second part is a collection of Helen's letters from childhood through 1901. The third part is a supplementary account of Helen’s education, including in-depth passages from her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan,...

While the Mark Twain Project has created and released a three-volume Mark Twain autobiography with extensive annotations, in the 21st century, this two-volume autobiography was published in 1924 and contains many works never before released. It came 14 years after Twain's death and so, "speaking from the grave", he felt he could be "as frank and free and unembarrassed as a love letter". The autobiographical chapters that he published years earlier in the North American Review, were selected more for their acceptability and potential popularity than for their completely true reflection of his ...

This biography of Houdini is based on Harry's many autobiographical fragments, diary entries, clippings of the era, as well as memories left by his wife, Beatrice, who married Harry when he was nineteen and remained with him as spouse and co-worker until Harry's death at age 52. Through this book, the biographer gives us insight into Houdini's methods, as well as inside looks at the inner workings of some of his most famous illusions. (Summary by Mark Harrington)

The Ordeal of Mark Twain analyzes the literary progression of Samuel L. Clemens and attributes shortcomings to Clemens' mother and wife. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says, Brooks' work "was a psychological study attempting to show that Twain had crippled himself emotionally and curtailed his genius by repressing his natural artistic bent for the sake of his Calvinist upbringing." Also, Brooks says, his literary spirit was sidelined as "...Mark Twain was inducted (with the success of 'Innocents Abroad') into the Gilded Age, launched, in defiance of that instinct which only for a few years was ...

Booker T. Washington was one of the first nationally recognized African American leaders after the Civil War. He was born to a slave woman in Virginia, who then took him as a young boy to West Virginia after the emancipation. Booker became a leader in education heading the Tuskegee Institute for more than 30 years and working with other universities. He advocated a moderate approach to elevating the African Americans through education and business, but worked behind the scenes to change discriminatory laws and practices, and became an adviser to the White House. He authored 14 books, and many ...

Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, also known as James Albert, (born ca. 1705 - 1775) was a freed slave and autobiographer. His autobiography is considered the first published by an African in Britain. Gronniosaw's autobiography was produced in Kidderminster in the late 1760s. Its full title is A Narrative of the Most remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, As related by himself. It was the first Slave narrative in the English language. Published in Bath in 1772, it gives a vivid account of Gronniosaw's life, from his capture in Africa through slavery to a ...

Col. Ingersoll begins his famous lecture on SHAKESPEARE as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One of the most famous orators of his day, a contemporary and personal friend of Mark Twain and General Grant, ...

James P. Beckworth, born in Virginia at the dawn of our Nation, moved with his family to eastern Missouri settling a few miles below what is now St. Charles. Still young, James began his education in the character of the Indian nations where he gained first hand knowledge of the Indian tactics and at times, their brutality. At the young age of 19, he became a member of the famed company known as Ashley's hundred. Working along side some our countries most revered adventurers. Hugh Glass, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and of course, General Ashley himself. After many adventures working for the ...

"Samuel Langhorne Clemens", "Mark Twain At Home", "Youth of Mark Twain" & "Mark Twain Gossip" Published in the June 16, 1888 edition of "Literature - An Illustrated Weekly Magazine" (Vol. 1, No. 17) these four, early magazine articles about Mark Twain fill in and analyze areas of Twain's persona for the first time. "Mark Twain At Home" was originally published in the London, England "World". ( John Greenman)

These volumes of slave narratives are the product of the Federal Writers Project sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Work Project Administration. They consist of verbatim records of personal interviews with former slaves conducted during 1936-1938. "These life histories, taken down as far as possible in the narrators' words, constitute an invaluable body of unconscious evidence or indirect source material, . . . The narratives belong to folk history—history recovered from the memories and lips of participants or eye-witnesses,” This is volume two for the state of North Carolina. -...

Col. Ingersoll begins his lectures on famous people as follows: "It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked—meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance." One of the most famous orators of his day, a contemporary and personal friend of Mark Twain and General Grant, ...