Charlotte Bronte, author, born in Thornton, England, April 21,1816,died in Haworth, England, March 31, 1855. Her father was a clergyman of Irish descent, an eccentric man, subject to strange outbursts of temper, gloomy, and solitary in spirit, and when Charlotte was six years old her mother died, and two years later she and a sister Emily were sent to school for clergymen's daughters at Cowan's Bridge, near Haworth, where the father was then in charge (the school is the original Lowood in Jane Eyre). They remained here two years and returned home in 1825, and after six years at home she was sent to school at Roe-Head, and in 1835 she became a teacher at that school, and afterward served as governess to a private family, and then went with Emily to Brussels (1842), to learn French and teach English in order to qualify themselves for teaching as a vocation. On her return, in 1844, she found her father had become nearly blind, and her only brother dissipated. Then she and sisters turned to literature for a living, and the three sisters published a volume of poems under the pseudonym of "Currer Bell." It had no sale, and they turned to fiction, and the stories of her sisters Emily and Anne were accepted and published, but her first one could find no publisher to print it. Then she began another, "Jane Eyre," published in 1847, that took the English world by storm, and that continues to be regarded as one of the great masterpieces of literature. Her second story, "Shirley," was published in 1849, and the third and last, "Villette," in 1853. The following year she married the curate of her father's parish, Rev. A. Nicholls, and after a brief married life died of the same disease, consumption, that had already carried off her four sisters and brother.

James Fenimore Cooper, author, born in Burlington, N. J., September 15, 1789, died at Cooperstown, N. Y., September 14, 1851. He was the son of Judge William Cooper, a Congressman who owned large tracts of land in New York state, and the year after the birth of James he laid out the village of Cooperstown on his possession and removed his family there, on the then border of civilization. Here James had limited schooling, and then entered the family of Rev. J. Ellison at Albany, who fitted him for Yale College, which he entered in 1802. Having been well tutored by Mr. Ellison (an alumnus of an English university)

young Cooper had much leisure time at Yale, and being guilty of misdemeanors was expelled in his third year. He then resolved to enter the United States Navy and served a voyage to Europe as sailor before the mast and then became midshipman, in 1808 rising to rank of lieutenant. In 1811 he married a sister of Bishop De Lancey of New York, and resigned his commission and resided at Cooperstown until 1817, when he removed to his wife's early home in Westchester county, where, one evening, reading an English novel he declared he could write a good one himself and was urged by his wife to do so, and in 1820 published a tale of English life, which met with but little favor. Urged by his wife and friends he now gave attention to American scenes and topics and in 1821 he wrote "The Spy," which had a wide circulation both sides of the Atlantic, being like many of his seventy odd productions translated into various European and Oriental languages. "The Pioneer," that came in 1823; "The Pilot," 1824, said to be the first sea-story ever written;"The Last of the Mohicans," 1826, gave him great fame. From 1826-33 he was in Europe, much of the time United States Consul at Lyons, France. Political asperities and literary jealousies called forth by some of his productions, led him to institute numerous libel suits against the prominent Whig editors of his state, which being decided in his favor tended to embitter many against him in his later life. Since his death his popularity has increased and he is reckoned among the chief of American novelists, "The Leather Stockings," "Wing and Wing, ""Last of the Mohicans," and "The Pilot" being perhaps his best.

Charles Dickens, author, born in Landport, Portsmouth, England, February 7, 1812; died at Gadshill Place, Rochester, England, June 9, 1870. At his birth his father was clerk in the Navy Pay Office. A few years later lost it, and the family came to great poverty when Charles was nine years of age. He was taught by his mother, and was a great reader of the dozen novels his father owned. When ten years of age, he worked in a blacking factory, pasting labels, at six shillings a week. Then the father, "a ne'erdo-well," quarreled with one of the owners of the factory, and took his son away and sent him to the public school. When fifteen, he was chore boy and clerk in a lawyer's

office. The father, having moved to London, as reporter for a daily paper, the son again had a little schooling, learning shorthand, and then reported for a law firm, and at nineteen became parliamentary reporter for daily papers for five years, and wrote for the Morning Chronicle and the Monthly Magazine, his "Sketches of English Life and Character," under the name of Boz, that were very popular. When twenty-four he wrote for the proprietors of the Monthly Magazine "The Pickwick Papers," and the next year (1837), "Oliver Twist," for Bentley's Magazine, as its editor, and the following year "Nicholas Nickleby." Then came " Old Humphrey's Clock," "Old Curiosity Shop," and "Barnaby Rudge," and in 1842 paid his first visit to the United States, as one of the most famous of Englishmen, and on his return wrote his somewhat caustic "American Notes." In 1843 he began "Martin Chuzzlewit," and being in debt went to Italy to save expense, where he finished the story and wrote the "Christmas Carols." On his return to England in 1845 he became editor of the Daily News (a new journal), at $200 a week, and it is said came near killing it, and soon left, and wrote "Dombey and Son," in 1846, and at intervals of three years each, "David Copperfield," ""Bleak House," and Little Dorrit," and for nine years (1850-9) he also conducted a periodical of his own, Household Words. After Dorrit came his "Hard Times" (1854), "Tale of Two Cities" (1859), then his unfortunate separation from his wife in 1858, after which he wrote "Great Expectations" (1860-1), and "Our Mutual Friend" (1864-5), and in 1870 began "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," which he did not live to finish. For the last ten years of his life he was largely employed on the lecture platform, as reader of his works, making three tours of England and one in America (1867-8), earning enormous sums and adding much to his reputation as a delineator of the characters of his personages. His works in cheap form have had an enormous sale in this country as in England. His "David Copperfield" and "Tale of Two Cities" are generally considered as the best of his works.

Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot), author, born in Griff, Warwickshire, England, November 22, 1819; died in Chelsea, England, December 22, 1880. Her father was a carpenter in moderate circumstances, and shortly after her birth became land agent or farmer on estate of a gentleman in Griff. She was one of three children by her father's second wife and shared the middle class home of her father till twenty-one. When sixteen her mother died, and a year later her older sister was married, and she had charge of her father's house. She was educated at public school at Colton, and also at private schools at

Griff, Nuneaton, and Coventry. Being fond of books and knowledge, after her mother's death she had a private teacher at home, and studied French, German, Italian, and music, and a few years after studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish, without being greatly proficient in either language. When she was twenty-one her father removed to Foleshill, near Coventry. Here she made the acquais tance of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bray, and ba wife's brother, Charles C. Hennell, and ber character underwent a notable change. The Brays were of some literary ability, and ef extreme "liberal views," and the girl, whose family was of the devout Methodist kitd, swung at once to the most pronounced skepticism, from which she never after recovered. When she was twenty-five, she undertook te finish for a friend of the Brays, Strauss E "Leben Jesu," that he had begun, and she finished it after three years of to her hard toil, and vowed she would never translate again. It was published by Dr. Chapman ci the Westminster Review. In 1849 her father died, and she went with her friends, the Brays, to the Continent, visiting Paris and Milan, and spent some time at Geneva, and there continued her study of music, and de lighted in reading Proudhon and Rousseau, and in attending lectures on physics. O returning to England, she met at Bray's, Dr. Chapman, who offered her the post of assist ant editor on the Westminster Review, and she boarded in the doctor's family, where she met Mr. Herbert Spencer, who became het friend, and introduced her to Mr. George Henry Lewes, also Harriet Martinean, Georg Combe, and other free-thinkers. In 184 she resigned her position on the Review, and formed, with Mr. Lewes, whose legal wife was living, the liaison, which history, that. like nature, makes for righteousness, cance condone, and together they went to Germany, where he collected materials for his "Life of Goethe," and she translated Sp noza Ethics, and wrote magazine articles without signing a name to them, as was thes her custom, and read scores of books an scores of subjects, and while at Berlin begat to write fiction for first time in 1856, in the "Scenes of Clerical Life," which Mr. Lewes sent to Blackwood, under the name of George Eliot," the publisher and the pub lic supposing its author was a man. She received $600 for the first edition of it in book form. She then worked on "Adam Bede' for two years, publishing it in 1859 on retureing to England, and for which Blackwood paid her $8,000 for copyright for four years. and it was translated into French, German and Hungarian, and she had become famous. sixteen thousand copies having been sold in England the first year, and was offered $6,000 by an American house for another book. She now devoured, as was her co tom, another long list of books, and in 184

was

published "The Mill on the Floss," for which Blackwood gave her $10,000 for the first edition of four thousand copies, and Harper & Brother $1,500 for privilege of using it. "Silas Marner" appeared in 1861, and after two years in Europe (mainly in study and reading in Italy), “Romola published in 1863, for which the Cornhill Magazine paid her $35,000. After much reading of Mill, Fawcett, and other political economists, "Felix Holt" was written in 1866, for which Blackwood gave $25,000. 66 'Middlemarch" came in 1872, bringing her from Blackwood over $40,000; and then again reading, it is said, near a thousand books, she brought out in 1876 "Daniel Deronda," and again received $40,000 from Black wood for it. She was now famous and rich, and in 1878 Mr. Lewes, with whom she lived as wife, died, and her grief was great. A year and a half later she suddenly married John Walter Cross, a rich banker of New York (young enough to be her son), and they went to Italy, and on their return to London, lived at Chelsea. Of their married life and separation Mr. Cross says but little, in his biography of her. After an illness of five days she died of inflammation of the heart, at midnight, December 22, 1880, and she, who when urged to write her autobiography had said, "The only thing I should care much to dwell on would be the absolute despair I suffered from, of ever being able to achieve anything. No one could ever have felt greater despair; and a knowledge of this might be a help to some other struggler," had a name written on the roll of the world's memorable women. A wonderfully receptive, impressible soul, she would have been much greater if her moral nature had been stronger at the parting of the ways. But a world built to run according to the ten commandments can never long accept genius as an excuse for sin, and the one stain on her memory will yet blot out her fame.

William Dean Howells, author, born in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, March 1, 1837. In 1840 father bought weekly newspaper at Hamilton, Ohio, where the family moved, and he learned to set type when child. Nine years after sold out and removed to Dayton, buying the Transcript, semiweekly, of that place, and changed to a daily on which William worked setting type till 11 P. M., and then up at 4 A. M. to "sell papers." It proved unsuccessful, and the family moved to Green County, and for a year "roughed it " in a log house. The next year young Howells worked as compositor on State Journal at $4 a week, which went to support the family. Then the father bought the Sentinel of Ashtabula, removing it to Jefferson, and William went to work on it. When nineteen he became state capitol correspondent of Cincinnati

Gazette and wrote also for Atlantic Monthly. In 1860 he published a Life of Lincoln and with proceeds went to Boston, Mass. From 1861-5 was United States consul at Venice, Italy, marrying in 1862 Miss Elinor G., sister of Larkin G. Mead, the American sculptor. On return to United States he wrote for the Tribune, Times, and the Nation of New York and soon became assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and from 1872 to 1881 its editor and resided at Cambridge, Mass. The following year he went to Europe with his family, and then from 1886-91 was one of the editors of Harper's Magazine and in the latter year became the editor of the Cosmopolitun Magazine. Was brought up in the Swedenborgian faith. Of his many works some twenty are quite as well known and extensively circulated in England as in United States. Is a widely known and successful author and editor.

Victor Hugo was born at Besançon, in 1802, son of Major Hugo of the Neapolitan army. The young Hugo's childish years were passed in Italy, France, and Spain; the education of those early years was in the hands of the mother, an original and self-reliant woman, who gave her three sons, of whom Victor was the youngest, plenty of work and the freedom of a large library; at ten years of age the boy was able to read Tacitus, Homer, and Virgil, and the French classics. In 1812, he entered upon a three years' course of regular study at the Ecole Polytechnique. In 1818, 1819, 1820, three odes presented at the Academie des Jeux Floraux, at Toulouse, received the prize, and with these Victor Hugo entered upon a literary career. Acquired some reputation in succeeding years as a dramatist, but it is in the role of novelist that his genius is most widely recognized. On account of a political difficulty, was banished from Paris in 1851, and retired to the island of Guernsey. Of his most successful books may be noted "Notre Dame de Paris" (1831), “Les Miserables" (1862), and the "Toilers of the Sea" (1865), and "Ninety-Three" (1874). Died May 22, 1885. Few men, even among statesmen, monarchs, and great generals, have had anything like the immense public triumphs the French have accorded to Victor Hugo. And his fame is far from being merely local, is, on the contrary, widespread and pervasive as the love and the demand for good literature.

Charles Kingsley, author, poet, born in Dartmoor (Devon), England, June 12, 1819, died January 23, 1875. His father was a clergyman, and Charles was educated at home, then by tutor, and then attended King's College, London, and afterward Magdalen College, Cambridge, where he took his

degree in 1842. After studying law he decided to enter the ministry, and after a course in theology became rector of Eversley in Hampshire, where he remained during most of his life. In 1848 he published his first drama, "The Saints' Tragedy," and a volume of "Sermons," the latter attaining a wide circulation. In 1849 he published what is by many esteemed his greatest work, "Alton Locke." Of his dozen or more other volumes, the best known are "Hypatia and "Westward, Ho!" Of his poems the most popular are "The Sands of Dee," "The Three Fishers," "To the Northwest Wind." He was canon of Chester in 1869, and of Westminster in 1873, and for a time chaplain to the Queen and Prince of Wales, and from 1860 to 1869 professor of modern history at Cambridge, and in 1872 he became the editor of Good Words, and in the winter of 1873-4 made a lecturing tour of the United States. His sympathies, as manifest in "Alton Locke,' were always with the toiling masses. His life was published by his wife in 1877 (2 volumes).

Walter Scott, the most popular writer of his era, was born at Edinburgh, August 15, 1771, of respectable and well-to-do parents. Was educated at Edinburgh High School, and at the University; was little distinguished in the ordinary branches of learning, but early secured a store of miscellaneous information. Having completed legal studies, was admitted to the bar in 1792. In 1800 was appointed sheriff of Selkirkshire, and in 1806, principal clerk in the Court of Sessions. Published the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" in 1805, which met with great applause. "Marmion" followed in 1808, and in 1810 the "Lady of the Lake." Greatest celebrity was attained as a writer of historical fiction, of which he produced not less than seventy-four volumes. "Waverley" was published in 1814, "Guy Mannering" in 1815. These were published anonymously, their authorship not being acknowledged until 1827. Also wrote a "Life of Napoleon." Died of paralysis, September 21, 1832. Was distinguished for uprightness of life, simplicity of manners, and benevolence of heart.

William Makepeace Thackeray was born at Calcutta, July 19, 1811, son of an Indian civil service officer. Received education at the Charter House school, and spent a year at Cambridge, leaving without a degree. Intending to become an artist, studied at Paris but without success. Had dissipated his patrimony by unlucky speculations and unfortunate investments, and life for some time was a struggle. In 1837 became connected with Fraser's Magazine, in which appeared "Yellowplush Papers," the "Great Hoggarty Diamond," the "Luck of Barry

Lewis Wallace, author, born in Brookville, Indiana, April 10, 1827. David Wallace, his father, was educated at the United States Military Academy, became lawyer, judge of court of common pleas, governor of state, and member of Congress, where he gave the casting vote in favor of an appropriation to develop Prof. S. F. B. Morse's telegraph, which vote cost him his re-election. Lewis's mother was daughter of Judge Test, and his parents made much effort to obtain for him an education; but he did not like school, his father saying that, while he paid for fourteen years for him at school, he attended but one year. Upon sending him to college he had no better success, and soon returned. Was passionately fond of reading, drawing, and painting, often caricaturing the congregation by comic sketches when he could be induced to attend church. Studied law with his father, and in 1852 married Miss Susan Arnold, who, like him, is a writer of much note, several of her novels having good sales. After his admittance to the bar he practiced in Covington and Crawfordsville, and was state senator four years; at the breaking out of the civil war was appointed adjutant-general of the State, then colonel of 11th Indiana regiment of volunteers, serving in several battles in West Virginia; was made brigadier-general of volunteers September 3, 1861, and his division led center of Union line at capture of Fort Donelson. Made major-general of volunteers March 21, 1862, and did heroic service in the second day's fight at Shiloh. In 1863 saved Cincinnati from being captured by General Edmund Kirby Smith, and was assigned to command of Eighth army corps, Middle military division, and with 5,800 men fought 28,000, under General Jubal A. Early, July 9, 1864, at the Monocacy, and, though defeated, saved Washington from capture, by giving General Grant time to get General Wright's division from City Point to that city. Was removed by General Halleck, but promptly restored by General Grant; served on court for trial of Lincoln's assassins, and was president of