Benjamin Franklin’s account of his rise from poverty and obscurity to affluence and fame is a self-portrait of a quintessential American which has charmed every generation of …
An extraordinary kind of autobiography in which each of the 21 chapters takes its title and its starting-point from one of the elements in the periodic table. Mingling fact and …
Possibly the most colourful figure in the history of Western music, Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) was certainly the most eloquent. His autobiography is among the greatest ever …
Describing his collection of Essays as ‘a book consubstantial with its author’, Montaigne identified both the power and the charm of a work which introduces us to one of the most …
Primo Levi's account of life as a concentration camp prisoner falls into two parts. IF THIS IS A MAN describes his deportation to Poland and the twenty months he spend working in …
Augustine’s spiritual autobiography is not only a major document in the history of Christianity and a classic of Roman Africa: it also marks a vital moment in the history of …
Sometimes overshadowed by his friend and contemporary, Samuel Pepys, Evelyn is the other great English diarist. He was a scholar, a scientific amateur, a garden designer and …
Letters by the 18th century blue-stocking grande dame, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She was a duke's daughter, who married the English ambassador in Constantinople, and the friend of …
Author of the first gothic novel and son of the first prime minister of Great Britain, Horace Walpole had wide-ranging interests that included literature, politics, world affairs, …
In this classic of American literature, Thoreau gives an account of his two years experience of the 'simple life' in the woods, telling how he sought and found material and …
