Marie-Louise Victoire de Donnissan, Marquise de la Rochejaquelein (1772 1857) was brought up at Versailles, a god-daughter to Louis XVI. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, she married her cousin, the Marquis de Lescure. After the execution of the king, she accompanied Lescure to La Vendee where a Royalist insurrection was waged from 1793 to 1796. Widowed in 1793, she later married Lescure's cousin, Louis, Marquis de La Rochejacquelein, brother of one of the Royalist leaders. Her memoir, first published in 1815 and translated and reprinted many times, remains one of the most authentic...

Sir Thomas Brassey (1836 1918), later Earl Brassey, was a politician with a particular interest in maritime affairs. He was a keen sailor, and his wife's accounts of their many voyages (also reissued in this series) were bestsellers. He subsequently became a Lord of the Admiralty and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Brassey's Naval Annual was for many years the authoritative survey of worldwide navies. This five-volume survey of the state of the British Navy was published between 1882 and 1883. Brassey was much involved with questions of the modernisation and reform of the Navy, at a time...

Appointed Major General by the Continental Congress in 1775, George Washington, the future President of the United States of America, was one of the most significant and influential witnesses to the American Revolutionary War (1775 1783). Published in England in 1795, twelve years after the end of the conflict, this two-volume collection of the letters he wrote to Congress during the war provides unique insights into both the military strategies employed and the evolving values that underpinned them. Taking up the narrative in January 1777, Volume 2 demonstrates a gradual shift in emphasis...

Friar Bernardino Sahagun was in 1529 one of the first Catholic missionaries to the Aztecs. During his sojourn in Mexico he came to speak Nahuatl (the native language) fluently and to understand the Aztec culture, customs, religion and infrastructure intimately. He compiled the largest and most richly detailed record of the Aztecs and their history before the civilisation was wiped out by the Spanish conquest, and Sahagun is sometimes considered 'the father of ethnology', as his study was the first to derive from the subjects' own point of view, through using native informants in his research....

Friar Bernardino Sahagun was in 1529 one of the first Catholic missionaries to the Aztecs. During his sojourn in Mexico he came to speak Nahuatl (the native language) fluently and to understand the Aztec culture, customs, religion and infrastructure intimately. He compiled the largest and most richly detailed record of the Aztecs and their history before the civilisation was wiped out by the Spanish conquest, and Sahagun is sometimes considered 'the father of ethnology', as his study was the first to derive from the subjects' own point of view, through using native informants in his research....

Thomas Carlyle (1795 1881) was one of the most influential authors of the nineteenth century. Eagerly studied at the highest level of intellectual society, his satirical essays and perceptive historical biographies caused him to be regarded for much of the Victorian period as a literary genius and eminent social philosopher. After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1814, he published his first scholarly work on German literature in 1824, before finding literary success with his history of the French Revolution in 1837. After falling from favour during the first part of the twentieth...

Thomas Carlyle (1795 1881) was one of the most influential authors of the nineteenth century. Eagerly studied at the highest level of intellectual society, his satirical essays and perceptive historical biographies caused him to be regarded for much of the Victorian period as a literary genius and eminent social philosopher. After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1814, he published his first scholarly work on German literature in 1824, before finding literary success with his history of the French Revolution in 1837. After falling from favour during the first part of the twentieth...

Thomas Carlyle (1795 1881) was one of the most influential authors of the nineteenth century. Eagerly studied at the highest level of intellectual society, his satirical essays and perceptive historical biographies caused him to be regarded for much of the Victorian period as a literary genius and eminent social philosopher. After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1814, he published his first scholarly work on German literature in 1824, before finding literary success with his history of the French Revolution in 1837. After falling from favour during the first part of the twentieth...

Thomas Carlyle (1795 1881) was one of the most influential authors of the nineteenth century. Eagerly studied at the highest level of intellectual society, his satirical essays and perceptive historical biographies caused him to be regarded for much of the Victorian period as a literary genius and eminent social philosopher. After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1814, he published his first scholarly work on German literature in 1824, before finding literary success with his ground-breaking history of the French Revolution in 1837. After falling from favour during the first part of...

Thomas Carlyle (1795 1881) was one of the most influential authors of the nineteenth century. Eagerly studied at the highest level of intellectual society, his satirical essays and perceptive historical biographies caused him to be regarded for much of the Victorian period as a literary genius and eminent social philosopher. After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1814, he published his first scholarly work on German literature in 1824, before finding literary success with his history of the French Revolution in 1837. After falling from favour during the first part of the twentieth...