Excerpt from Biographical Hand-Book of the Gem Portrait Gallery: Containing Condensed Sketches of Eminent Authors, Poets, Novelists, Travelers, Explorers, Inventors, Scientists, Statesmen, Orators, Rulers, Ministers, Theologians, Artists, Composers, Musicians, and Nearly One Thousand Gems of Prose and Poetry Next to personal acquaintance with eminent men is familiarity with their biographies. This little volume, with its accompanying portraits of one hundred and eighty-two foremost writers, artists, statesmen, scientists, and inventors, is an attempt to meet a real want. The likeness, and the life-story, and a suggestive and characteristic thought, taken together, will tell students and readers much more than either separately. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.