The Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men were five volumes of Dionysius Lardner's 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46). Aimed at the self-educating middle class, this encyclopedia was written during the 19th-century literary revolution in Britain that encouraged more people to read.
The Lives formed part of the Cabinet of Biography in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia. The three-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal (1835–37) and the two-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France (1838–39) consist of biographies of important writers and thinkers of the 14th to 18th centuries. Most of them were written by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley. Shelley's biographies reveal her as a professional woman of letters, contracted to produce several volumes of works and paid well to do so. Her extensive knowledge of history and languages, her ability to tell a gripping biographical narrative, and her interest in the burgeoning field of feminist historiography are reflected in these works.
At times Shelley had trouble finding sufficient research materials and had to make do with fewer resources than she would have liked, particularly for the Spanish and Portuguese Lives. She wrote in a style that combined secondary sources, memoir, anecdote, and her own opinions. Her political views are most obvious in the Italian Lives, where she supports the Italian independence movement and promotes republicanism; in the French Lives she portrays women sympathetically, explaining their political and social restrictions and arguing that women can be productive members of society if given the proper educational and social opportunities.
The Lives did not attract enough critical attention to become a bestseller. A fair number were printed and sold, however, and far more copies of the Lives circulated than of Shelley's novels. Some of the volumes were pirated in the United States, where they were praised by the poet and critic Edgar Allan Poe. Not reprinted until 2002, Mary Shelley's biographies have until recently received little academic appreciation.
Read more about Lives Of The Most Eminent Literary And Scientific Men: Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Mary Shelley's Contributions, Lives of The Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal, Lives of The Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France
Famous quotes containing the words lives, eminent, literary, scientific and/or men:
“However diligent she may be, however dedicated, no mother can escape the larger influences of culture, biology, fate . . . until we can actually live in a society where mothers and children genuinely matter, ours is an essentially powerless responsibility. Mothers carry out most of the work orders, but most of the rules governing our lives are shaped by outside influences.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Twelve o’clock! It is the natural centre, key-stone, and very heart of the day. At that hour, the sun has arrived at the top of his hill; and as he seems to hang poised there a while, before coming down on the other side, it is but reasonable to suppose that he is then stopping to dine; setting an eminent example to all mankind.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“A guide book is addressed to those who plan to follow the traveler, doing what he has done, but more selectively. A travel book, in its purest, is addressed to those who do not plan to follow the traveler at all, but who require the exotic or comic anomalies, wonders and scandals of the literary form romance which their own place or time cannot entirely supply.”
—Paul Fussell (b. 1924)
“Now, I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass—at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.”
—Bret Harte (1836–1902)
“Knowledge has two extremes. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great minds, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same natural ignorance from which they set out; this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)