Includes Table of Contents and List of Illustrations. If you, Reader, enjoy getting your hands on some of the behind-the-scenes details on celebrity-type individuals, here is just that sort of gossipy, secretive info, or what might have passed for same, in 1910. And, there are, beginning with the book's Frontispiece featuring Geoffrey Chaucer, some 11 full-page portraits of some of the aforementioned artists, all presented in an antique-like, purplish-brown shade/tint. Twenty-five or so American writers of renown are profiled, among them Franklin, Irving, Cooper, Bryant, Thoreau, Emerson, Poe, Lowell, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Lanier, Twain, Crane, Hamlin Garland, and Eugene Field. Johnson, Gibbon, Burns, Ruskin, the Brownings, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Stevenson, and Kipling. Some 33 noted English writers are included, among them Shakespeare, Milton, Dr. This does not mean, however, that one dare never see the weaker side, the foibles and eccentricities of the of genius." The author's wish was, indeed, to show his assorted subjects as all too human, imperfect beings who had some pretty darn interesting aspects to their personalities that might prove inspiring enough to young, eager students' minds to urge them to make further inquiries of some of these celebrated wordsmiths. To show the excellences of the art and the lovableness of the artist rather than to hunt for defects is the duty and the delight of the teacher of literature. But what an aid such a collection is to the appreciation of literature! The dignified and abbreviated history of literature cannot indulge in such delightful gossip as is found in the freer essay and fuller biography. Few schools have libraries including the bound volumes of the magazines of the past quarter of a century. From Preface, "The purpose of this book is to help in making literature and the makers of literature alive and interesting. A previous owner's unusually neat signature, in black ink, is seen on the upper-third portion of the front loose end page. There is modest yellowing of endpapers front and back as well as the pages of text. Still in quite decent overall shape, physically, there is some noticeable shelf wear along the last 1"-1 1/4" of the bottom of the book's spine, and much less so at the top edge of same. Not an ex-library copy, this 5" X 7 1/2", 103-year-old, 369-page, May, 1910, First Reprinted offering is in G+ condition. Stories of Authors: British and American by Edwin Watts Chubb was originally published by Sturgis & Walton Company, New York, in February, 1910.
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