This biography of Puccini was written while the composer was at the height of his career. Besides the usual biographical information, the author summarizes and discusses Puccini's works to this point, including Le Villi, Edgar, Manon Lescaut, La Boheme, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly . - Summary by Ciufi Galeazzi

A short biography of Saint Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, from the time of his persecution of the Christians to his martyrdom.

This is a young person's biography of Abigail Adams that will appeal to readers of all ages. In the author's own words, "I am not writing a history; far from it. I am merely throwing on the screen, in the fashion of today, a few scenes to make a background for my little pen-picture-play. " - Summary by Ciufi Galeazzi

Frederick II , under whose reign the Holy Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent, was called by his contemporaries "Stupor Mundi," the "astonishment of the world." Frequently at war with the papacy, which was hemmed in between Frederick's northern and southern Italian lands, he was excommunicated four times. Frederick spoke six languages and was an avid patron of the arts. He negotiated a peace treaty ending the sixth crusade, reigned over a cosmopolitan court at Palermo, and entrusted the administration of his southern kingdom to an efficient Muslim and Jewish bureaucracy...

Seeing himself as "unequal to so great a task", St. Bonaventure nevertheless endeavored to introduce his readers to the practice of "the most beneficial of all devout exercises, and that which is most capable of leading [them] to the summit of Christian perfection": the contemplation of the life of Our Lord. By "frequent and habitual meditations on that divine subject" even "very illiterate persons" have been raised to such "familiarity, confidence, and love of him" that they have become "profoundly versed in the most sublime mysteries of God"...

Edward the Black Prince was the eldest son of King Edward III of England. He commanded the vanguard at the Battle of Crécy and, skillfully deploying his troops, defeated a much larger French force at the Battle of Poitiers. In this short biography, Louise Creighton sets Edward's life within the context of his times and portrays both the bright and the dark sides of this paragon of chivalry.

Saint Edmund Campion, S.J., was an English Catholic Jesuit priest and martyr. While conducting an underground ministry to the persecuted Catholics of Elizabethan England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

William S. Nelson, D.D., was appointed as a missionary to Syria by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, USA in 1888. In this short works, as the title suggests, he gives glimpses into his life as a missionary against the background of Syrian culture.

For Chesterton, Francis of Assisi is a great paradoxical figure, a man who loved women but vowed himself to chastity; an artist who loved the pleasures of the natural world as few have loved them, but vowed himself to the most austere poverty, stripping himself naked in the public square so all could see that he had renounced his worldly goods; a clown who stood on his head in order to see the world aright. Chesterton gives us Francis in his world-the riotously colorful world of the High Middle Ages, a world with more pageantry and romance than we have seen before or since...

Fanny relates the experiences of a 19th century missionary as she and her young husband proselytize throughout Europe in search of converts to the new Mormon faith. Her religious zeal is sorely tested upon receipt of news from America revealing that their religion has adopted the practice of polygamy as the means to exaltation. The couple is summoned to Utah only to find themselves firmly ensconced in Brigham Young's inner circle and called upon to practice plural marriage or risk a fall from family, friends, and faith. - Summary by Spiffycat

The life of Frederick Douglass, recorded in the pages which follow, is not merely an example of self elevation under the most adverse circumstances; it is, moreover, a noble vindication of the highest aims of the American anti-slavery movement.

In "Among the great masters of the drama; scenes in the lives of famous actors; thirty-two reproductions of famous pictures with text", Walter Rowlands introduces us to the most famous playwrights and actors that might be seen on the London stages in the 19th century. Many of the playwrights mentioned are very famous until today, like Shakespeare and Molière, some are today less well-known. Especially interesting are the short biographies of the stars of the stage, which may in some cases remind you of contemporary actors. - Summary by Carolin

Sir Walter Ralegh , English soldier, explorer, courtier, writer, and poet was one of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era. Louise Creighton's short biography follows him from the wars in Spain to the jungles of Guiana. Ralegh sparkles in a court riddled with intrigue and constrained by attendance on the brilliant, imperious Elizabeth and on her successor, that rigid mediocrity, James. During his long confinement in the Tower of London, Ralegh conducted chemical experiments and wrote a ''History of the World...

Mark Twain and William Dean Howells were friends for 44 years. Their personal and professional relationship is considered by many to be one of the most important in American literature. Howells published his famous "My Mark Twain" in the same year Clemens died, 1910. A few years earlier, Clemens wrote this "remembrance" and "appreciation" of the man who stuck with him through the ups and downs of his long literary journey.

Henry IV, King of France and Navarre was the first monarch of France from the House of Bourbon. He was raised in the Protestant faith, barely escaped death in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, and led the Protestant forces against the Catholic armies in the French Wars of Religion. Declaring that "Paris was well worth a mass," he abjured the Calvinist faith, which brought an end to the pitiless strife that was destroying France. "Good King Henry" is remembered for his courage in battle, his geniality, and his great concern for the welfare of his subjects. A survivor of multiple assassination attempts, he succumbed to the knife of François Ravaillac in 1610.

Excerpt from Preface: Their patriotic sacrifices were made with an enthusiasm that showed the earnest spirit ready on every occasion to appear in generous acts. Some gave their own property, and went from house to house to solicit contributions for the army. Colors were embroidered by fair hands, and presented with the charge never to desert them; and arms and ammunition were provided by the same liberal zeal. They formed themselves into associations renouncing the use of teas, and other imported luxuries, and engaging to card, spin, and weave their own clothing.

In this second volume of his work on English rational theology in the seventeenth century, Tulloch describes the lives and works of the group of theologians known as the Cambridge Platonists. - Summary by Barry Ganong

This short, engaging volume summarizes the life of a priest who, intending to spark a lively academic debate by nailing 95 theses on a church door, unwittingly sets the continent aflame with the 1517 Reformation of the Catholic Church. - Summary by Elyse J. Wood

This volume celebrates stories of great heroes from the pages of history from Moses and David through Clara Barton and Henry Longfellow. It is divided into nine sections: Mighty Men of Long Ago, Heroes of the Middle Ages, Four Leaders in the Old World, Discoverers and Explorers, Colonists and Pioneers, Patriots of the Revolution, Winners of the West, Famous Inventors, and The Greatest Americans, It is written from a distinct Western and American point of view, but each chapter is a short summary of these people deemed “heroes...

Ralph Keeler failed as a novelist, but this autobiography reflects a life well-lived with humor and adventure. Keeler was in the same literary circle as satirist Bret Harte, novelist Charles Warren Stoddard, editor Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and essayist William Dean Howells. He so impressed Mark Twain that Twain wrote an essay about him called "Ralph Keeler". In 1873, on his way to Cuba, he reportedly was thrown overboard by a Spanish loyalist who objected to his backing of the revolutionary, anti-Spanish movement. - Summary by John Greenman

Joseph of Copertino was an Italian Conventual Franciscan friar who is honored as a Christian mystic and saint. He was said to have been remarkably unclever, but prone to miraculous levitation and intense ecstatic visions that left him gaping.  Joseph began to experience ecstatic visions as a child, which were to continue throughout his life, and made him the object of scorn. He applied to the Conventual Franciscan friars, but was rejected due to his lack of education. He then pleaded with them to serve in their stables...

This is a 'lightning biography' which serves as an introduction to the field of Napoleonic history. Its purpose is to enable the ordinary reader or would-be student safely to take the first few steps in Napoleonic literature. This is not a short history, but a short biography - the one contains the other, but in a different key.

A biography of Saint Joan of Arc, geared towards children, but also can easily be enjoyed by adults.

Mae Watkins, a University of Michigan student, unexpectedly falls in love with a Chinese international law student in the midst of World War I. Despite the socially unacceptable pairing the couple decide to tie the knot and forge ahead with an unsure future. Mae demonstrates her unique ability to observe and describe a foreign culture after their move to Shanghai. She documents in detail her perceptions of Chinese fashion and food in addition to her knowledge of such controversial customs as foot binding and widow suicide...

Louise Creighton was a British author and women's rights activist. The wife of the Anglican bishop of London, she was the mother of seven children. In this short book, Creighton gives us chapters on such well-known women as Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, and Queen Victoria. But we also learn about St. Hilda, the 7th century royal princess who became an influential abbess, the prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry, and Isabella Bird, who thrilled Victorian readers with accounts of her lone travels on horseback to remote and perilous places. - Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.

Brief sketches of the lives and music of 12 well-known musicians. - Summary by KevinS

Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints : with reflections for every day in the year : compiled from "Butler's Lives" and other approved sources : to which are added lives of the American saints : placed on the calendar for the United States by special petition of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore - Summary from the book itself

As one of the first two bishops of the Methodist church in America and one of the most well-known circuit riders during the spread of Methodism, Francis Asbury kept a journal of his travels and activities. His journal begins with his prayerful decision to come to America in 1771 and continues to December of 1815, a few months before his death. In the meantime, we travel with Rev. Asbury across the ocean, over mountains, through rivers, and up and down the whole length of the fledgling United States of America. Summary by Devorah Allen

Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving lives contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman, as well as four unpaired, single lives. Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, as such, but in exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. The first pair of lives the Epaminondas-Scipio Africanus no longer exists, and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers...

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...

From time immemorial, women have served as wives, mothers and domestic organizers. But in the nineteenth century, the lives of women were changing, allowing those with drive to serve in other capacities. In this volume, we briefly examine the lives of eleven such women, ranging from 'Our Lady of the Red Cross', Clara Barton to 'A Champion of the Cause', Anna Howard Shaw and 'The White Mother of Darkest Africa', Mary Slessor. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

William Cowper Brann earned the nickname “The Iconoclast” by fearlessly attacking established beliefs and institutions which he thought to be pompous and self-serving. He settled in the wild and wooly West Texas town of Waco in the late 1800s as a newspaper man - first as a writer and then as owner of newspaper he named “The Iconoclast”. During this period, Catholics and Protestants were duking it out over the soul of Texas and there was even further sectarian strife among Protestants. Brann wrote prolifically and aired his Politically Incorrect views with vigor and colorful language...