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 fourteenth to eighteenth centuries. Most of them were authored 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. The Lives did not attract enough critical attention to become a bestseller. Not reprinted until 2002, Mary Shelley's biographies have only recently been appreciated.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Most_Eminent_Literary_and_Scientific_Men

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

301:

San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino

590:

Gregory I became pope, the first one to come from a monastic background. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_I

1260:

Egyptian Mamluks defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ain_Jalut

1783:

Great Britain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the American Revolutionary War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_%281783%29

1901:

The National Flag of Australia, a Blue Ensign defaced with the Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross, flew for the first time atop the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Australia

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

faceplant (n): The act of landing face first, as a result of an accident or error http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faceplant

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies in a twinkling.

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law. --Louis Sullivan http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivan