It may be well that I should put a short preface to this book. In the summer of 1878 my father told me that he had written a memoir of his own life. He did not speak about it at length, but said that he had written me a letter, not to be opened until after his death, containing instructions for publication. This letter was dated 30th April, 1876. I will give here as much of it as concerns the public: "I wish you to accept as a gift from me, given...

When he was nine years old, Paul Polson lay on his bed in his family home, burning up with fever. He experienced a "vision" during that fever that repeated itself several times throughout his life. The message was clear during the vision, but Paul couldn't describe it when he woke. What it did do was give him confidence that he could do anything he wanted and succeed. In The Vision, he shares his story: A lifelong passion for the arts and a quest...

Benvenuto Cellini started getting onto trouble at a young age. By age sixteen, he had already been exiled from his hometown for six months due to a public assault of another citizen. As a man with endless talents- sculpting, drafting, writing, music, Cellini enjoyed dabbling in many different art forms, a career that enabled him to travel to various major cities. After apprenticing for a goldsmith, Cellini moved to Rome at age nineteen. There, Pope...

Walter Pater (1839-1894) attained a B.A. degree in Classics from Queen's College, Oxford, followed soon after by a M.A. degree from Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was made a Fellow in 1865. That same year Pater toured Italy, where he discovered what would become a lifelong passion for masters of the Italian Renaissance like Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, among many others. In 1877 he published "The Renaissance: Studies in...

P. T. Barnum's "The Art of Money Getting" is a timeless guide to achieving financial success, filled with practical advice and insights from one of America's most famous showmen and businessmen. First published in 1880, Barnum's wisdom on wealth accumulation remains relevant today, offering readers a blend of common sense, business acumen, and moral guidance. In this classic work, Barnum shares his principles for acquiring wealth, emphasizing the...

The Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace is a national icon, yet few have heard of its sculptor, Thomas Brock. He left school at 12 to be an apprentice at the Worcester Royal Porcelain Works, then joined the London studio of John Henry Foley. He completed the figure of the Prince Consort for the Albert Memorial after Foleys death. One of the young sculptors encouraged by Sir Frederic Leighton, he became famous for his lifelike portrait...

The first critical biography of one of the twentieth-century's towering literary figures. Stephen Spender was a minor poet, but a major cultural influence during much of the century. Literary critic, journalist, art critic, social commentator, and friend, end of the best-known cultural figures of the modernist and postmodernist periods (Yeats, Woolf, Sartre, Auden, Eliot, Isherwood, Hughes, Brodsky, Ginsberg-a "who's who" of contemporary literature)....

Fotógrafo excelente, los retratos que hace pueden lucir en cualquier parte del mundo. Nació en Guadalajara en 1841, hijo del apreciable caballero Sr. D. Regino. Octaviano en su viaje a Europa perfeccionó sus trabajos artísticos que han sido premiados hasta en la Exposición de París, celebrada en 1878. El establecimiento del Sr. Mora es el mejor de Guadalajara, está montado con lujo, el gusto más exigente puede estar seguro de quedar complacido,...

Con voz ronca y fuerte Jesús Martínez Rentería, cuyo nombre como cómico carpero fue "Palillo", criticó y denunció a los políticos priístas y a las formas de hacer política en la época que le tocó vivir. Este cómico político surgió de las carpas y durante toda su vida fue un actor de lo que se conoció como teatro de revista. Podría decirse que fue el único actor que mantuvo la esencia de lo que fueron las carpas entre los años veinte...

In Growing Up Guggenheim, Peter Lawson-Johnston-a Guggenheim himself, and the board president who oversaw the transformation of the renowned museum from a local New York institution to a global art venture-shares a personal memoir that includes intimate portraits of the five people principally responsible for the entire Guggenheim art legacy. In addition to first-hand biographical accounts of his grandfather Solomon Guggenheim (the museum's founder),...