The playwright gives a play its plot, characters, dialog and form, but its sense of living reality is conveyed by the art of the actor. This fascinating collection of perspectives on acting is taken from biographies and autobiographies of American, British and Italian actors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. John Wilkes Booth, an actor and the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, is recalled by his brother, the great actor Edwin Booth, and by acclaimed actress Clara Morris. -- Lee Smalley

One of a series of books, "Little Masterpieces in Science" edited by George Iles, Health and Healing is a collection of articles written by prominent physicians and scientists describing key advances in medicine through the end of the 19th century. Published in 1902, this book includes chapters on Pasteur's work with vaccines, tuberculosis, malaria, pain, eye care, prolonging life and some rules for health.

Writers is Volume 4 of Library of Little Masterpieces of Autobiography in Six Volumes as published in 1913, and includes writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry George. The series includes letters, passages from autobiographies, and pages from diaries written by each of these. - Summary by J. M. Smallheer

Another in the series "Little Masterpieces of Science" edited by George Iles, Mind is a collection of articles and book chapters that provide insight into the study of the workings of the mind the nineteenth century. - Summary by J.M. Smallheer

The Skies and the Earth is another in the series Little Masterpieces of Science edited by George Iles and published in 1902. It includes essays on the Sun, Astronomy, Geological Change on Earth, Rivers, the Sea and Earthquakes and Volcanoes by eminent scientists of the 19th Century. - Summary by J. M. Smallheer