Excerpt from People's Book of Biography, or Short Lives of the Most Interesting Persons of All Ages and Countries: Containing More Than Eighty Sketches of the Lives and Deeds of Eminent Philanthropists, Inventors, Authors, Poets, Discoveries, Soldiers, Adventurers, Travelers, Politicians, and Rulers, Women as Well as Men Biography, which is the most ancient kind of composition with which we are acquainted, remains to this day the most interesting. Fiction itself, and the drama not less, as well as the highest forms of epic poetry, derive their value from their biographic truth, and their interest from the insatiable desire which men have to know how it has fared with their fellows. 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.