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Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men information


Title page with an illustration of a man writing at a desk. There are filled bookcases and a curtain in the background.
Title page from the second volume of Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France (1838)

The Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men comprised ten volumes of Dionysius Lardner's 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–1846). 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. Within the set of ten, 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 illegally copied 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.

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Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men

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The Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men comprised ten volumes of Dionysius Lardner's 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–1846). Aimed...

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Mary Shelley bibliography

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Shelley's Literary Lives and Other Writings. It lists first editions of works authored by Mary Shelley, except where indicated. —. "A Tale of the Passions...

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Claire Clairmont

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about the relations between men and women, using examples from the lives of Shelley and Byron. She did not make many literary attempts, as she explained...

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Mary Shelley

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Dionysius Lardner's Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men. These formed part of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, one of the best of many such series...

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Posthumous Poems

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statement about the circumstances of the publication: "It was with difficulty that a publisher was found for the book, the sale of two hundred and fifty copies...

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Samuel Astley Dunham

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Galiano in 1844. A History of Europe during the Middle Ages, 4 vols., 1833–4. Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Great Britain, 3 vols...

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Samuel Johnson

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to the Western Islands of Scotland. Near the end of his life came a massive, influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets of the 17th and 18th...

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Lives of the Necromancers

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Lives of the necromancers or An account of the most eminent persons in successive ages who have claimed for themselves or to whom has been imputed by...

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Biography

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collection of biographies of eminent men and women in the United Kingdom was Biographia Britannica (1747–1766) edited by William Oldys. The American biography...

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Western canon

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German authors, literary critics, and scholars of German ranked the most significant German-language novels of the twentieth century. The group brought...

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History of masturbation

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The history of masturbation describes broad changes in society concerning the ethics, social attitudes, scientific study, and artistic depiction of masturbation...

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Sigmund Freud

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Beavers, Jamie; Monte, Emmanuelle (2002). "The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century". Review of General Psychology. 6 (2): 139–152. CiteSeerX 10...

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Genius

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to count and assess the eminent relatives of eminent men. He found that the number of eminent relatives was greater with a closer degree of kinship. This...

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The MANIAC

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Meyjes, and his eminent physicist colleagues. It chronicles his descent into despair and depression over disintegration of his marriage, the advent of quantum...

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Xenophanes

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survives in quotations by later philosophers and literary critics. Xenophanes is seen as one of the most important pre-Socratic philosophers. A highly...

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Thomas Leyson

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Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. Robert Bell (1839). Lives of the most eminent literary scientific men of Great Britain: English Poets. Longman. pp. 118–9...

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Posidonius

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 215 Kidd, I. G. Posidonius: The Translation of the Fragments, Volume III Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, 7.39–40. Sextus...

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Metaphysical poets

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adopted by other and especially younger poets to fit appropriate circumstances. In the chapter on Abraham Cowley in his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets...

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Later life of Isaac Newton

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uneasy and dissatisfied at seeing the most eminent scientific man of his age left to depend upon the meagre remuneration of a college fellowship and a professorship...

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John Aubrey

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him into the paths of errour". A large part of the "Lives" was published in 1813 as Letters Written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth...

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Florence Nightingale

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"Florence Nightingale," in Eminent Women of the Age; Being Narratives of the Lives and Deeds of the Most Prominent Women of the Present Generation, Hartford...

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Geoffrey Chaucer

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1966 and has maintained its position as the pre-eminent journal of Chaucer studies. In 1994, literary critic Harold Bloom placed Chaucer among the greatest...

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Nawab Abdul Latif

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Ripon honoured him with a "Companionship of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire." In 1887, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, Viceroy...

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Library of Alexandria

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of Aristeas, 9–12.  Laërtius, Diogenes (1925b). "The Peripatetics: Demetrius" . Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 1:5. Translated by Hicks, Robert...

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The Island of Doctor Moreau

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the Scientific Romances is reprinted as a chapter of editors Patrick Parrinder and Robert M. Philmus's H. G. Wells's Literary Criticism (Sussex: The Harvester...

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English language

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þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and...

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