"Autobiographical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... engaged in preparing a continuation of his "History of Scotland," to the era of the Disruption; he also meditated the publication of a volume of essays. His poetical works, which appeared at various intervals, were re-published in 1850, in two duodecimo volumes, with an interesting autobiographical sketch. Of his poems those most deserving of notice, next to the "Sabbath," are "The House of Mourning, or the Peasant's Death," and "The Plough," both evincing grave and elevated sentiment, expressed in correct poetical language. The following ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... autobiographical sketch of the last few weeks of my existence, I had conceived, as I have already said, the notion of making it chiefly a guide to conduct for my young disciple, Dale Kynnersley. Not only was it to explain ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... had obtained the reversion to the office of custos rotulorum brevium, and, according to his autobiographical notes, sat in parliament in 1543; but his name does not occur in the imperfect parliamentary returns until 1547, when he was elected for the family borough of Stamford. Earlier in that year he had accompanied Protector Somerset on his Pinkie campaign, being one of the two "judges ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... is, by general consent, Dickens's masterpiece, showing, as it does, all his peculiar merits in their highest form. It is the most autobiographical of his novels, and the one into which he put most ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... part settled in foreign countries, he spent his holidays as a minute and pale-faced 'paying guest' in various houses where other children were of more importance than he, or where children as a race were of no importance at all." It would be a mistake to confer on such a fictional passage a strict autobiographical importance; but I think it significant that the novel with which Walpole first won an American following, Fortitude, should derive from a theme as simple and as strong as that of a classic symphony—from ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... taken into consideration, because such sheep cannot consider; they can only criticise. The next thing they did, therefore, was to take out the incident in the book which was most likely to damage her reputation, and declare that it was autobiographical. There was one man who knew exactly when the thing had occurred, who the characters were, and all ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the Easy Chair, with autobiographical relish, "they wrote me together, but it was not long before Mr. Mitchell left off, and Curtis kept on alone, and, as you say, he incomparably characterized me. He had his millennial hopes as well as you. In his youth he trusted ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... modern taste would choose to put them in a place by themselves, not in a collection of old ballads. An essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad was written, as were the Remarks on Popular Poetry, for the 1833 edition. It is chiefly interesting for its autobiographical matter, though it also contains criticisms of Burns and other writers of ballad poetry—"a species of literary labour which the author has himself pursued with some success."[67] Scott's statement that the ballad style was very popular at the time he began to write, and that he followed the prevailing ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... among the ugly, vilely-printed German volumes, felt suddenly a kind of magnetic influence creeping over him. The room seemed instinct with a harsh commanding presence. The history of a mind and soul was written upon the face of it; every shelf, as it were, was an autobiographical fragment, an 'Apologia pro Vita Mea.' He drew away from the books at last with the uneasy feeling of one who surprises a confidence, and looked for Robert. Robert was at the end of the room, a couple of volumes ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... collaborator, and in which he published his Rimas, there appeared one of the first versions of the Intermezzo,[1] and it is not unlikely that in imitation of the Intermezzo he was led to string his Rimas like beads upon the connecting thread of a common autobiographical theme. In the seventy-six short poems that compose his Rimas, Becquer tells "a swiftly-moving, passionate story of youth, love, treachery, despair, and final submission." "The introductory poems are meant to represent a stage of absorption in the beauty and complexity of the natural world, during ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... this volume is "An Affair of the Misty City," a valuable chapter, since it is wholly autobiographical, and at the same time embodies pen portraits of all the celebrities of California's first literary days, that famous group of which Stoddard was one. Of all the group, Ina Coolbrith was closest and dearest ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... so that I never wished to escape from it, but must try to hide the fact whenever the real Spain fell below the ideal, however I might reason with my infatuation or try to scoff it away. It had once been so inextinguishable a part of me that the record of my journey must be more or less autobiographical; and though I should decently endeavor to keep my past out of it, perhaps I should not try very hard and should ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... imperfectly dated. Fortunately, however, the envelopes have in almost every case been preserved; so the postmark, when legible, has filled the lacuna. At every turn in his life we are reminded of his inexactitude—especially in autobiographical details. And yet, too, like most inexact men, he was a rare stickler for certain niceties. He would have defended the "h" in Meccah with his sword; and the man who spelt "Gypsy" with an "i" for ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... occasions of desperate service. We have this on the authority of a distinguished seaman of Nelson's time. Departing this life as Admiral of the Fleet on the eve of the Crimean War, Sir Thomas Byam Martin has recorded for us amongst his all too short autobiographical notes these few characteristic words uttered by one young man of the many who must have felt that particular ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... 54. Two autobiographical works, the Malfuzat and the Tuzukat, are attributed to Timur and probably were composed under his direction. The latter was translated by Major Davey (Oxford, 1783), and the former, in part, by Major Stewart (Or. Transl. Fund, 1830). An independent ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight." In 1791 he wrote an anonymous letter to Fox, in which he advanced the sentiments to which he later gave expression in his "Political Justice," his principal work. In his autobiographical notes he explains:— ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... when the means of intercourse exist. My experiences of foreign lands are everywhere connected with the most pleasing and the most grateful remembrances." In 1873 Lady Bowring published a 'Memorial Volume of Sacred Poetry,' containing many of his popular hymns; and in 1877 his 'Autobiographical Recollections' were published, with a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... of this is, that Hawthorne's genius had now waxed to a stature which made its emanations less immediately dependent on his actual mood. I am far from assuming an exact autobiographical value for the "Twice-Told Tales"; a theory which the writer himself condemned. But they, as he has also said, require "to be read in the clear brown twilight atmosphere in which they were written"; while the "Mosses" ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... landscape, pointing out to me localities interesting from their historical or traditional associations, or connected in some way with humorous or pathetic passages of his own life experience. Some of these autobiographical fragments affected me deeply. In narrating them he invested familiar and commonplace facts with something of the fascination of romance. "Human life," he would say, "is the same everywhere. If we could but ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Is it in any sense an autobiographical play? Does its symbolism have much in common with that of modern symbolistic plays, such as Maeterlinck's 'Joyzelle,' for example? In what respects may it be said, do you think, as Maeterlinck himself has informed us, that 'Joyzelle' grew from ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... found to differ materially from the same incidents and episodes as set down in the writings of Mr. Clemens himself. Mark Twain's spirit was built of the very fabric of truth, so far as moral intent was concerned, but in his earlier autobiographical writings—and most of his earlier writings were autobiographical—he made no real pretense to accuracy of time, place, or circumstance—seeking, as he said, "only to tell a good story"—while in later years an ever-vivid imagination and a capricious memory ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... remarkable career through which he had reached that elevation. I hope, therefore, to be considered as having conquered my own disinclination to be the relater of events in which I was concerned, in order to overcome the scruples which he entertained against being the author of the autobiographical sketch, embracing so singular a portion of his life, which I have extracted from the rough ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... my own experience I must ask the reader's pardon if I seem egoistic or autobiographical. Without taking oneself too smugly or too seriously one finds it the only way of reproducing the thing that has happened in one's own life ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... poem." says Fleay; "some as several poems—of groups of sonnets; some as containing a separate poem in each sonnet. They have been supposed to be written in Shakespeare's own person, or in the character of another, or of several others; to be autobiographical or heterobiographical or allegorical; to have been addressed to Lord Southampton, to Sir William Herbert, to his own wife, to Lady Rich, to his child, to himself, to his Muse." The safest and wisest course seems ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... poem, Pauline, appeared anonymously in January, 1833, when he was twenty years old. This poem is of especial autobiographical interest. Its enthusiastic praise of Shelley recalls his early devotion to that poet, and in many scattered passages we find references to his own personality or experiences. The following lines show with what intensity he recreated the lives ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... trouble. He removed in consequence to Weimar, where he pursued his classical studies under the direction of Franz Passow, at whose house he lodged. Unhappily, during his sojourn at Weimar his relations with his mother became strained. One feels that there is a sort of autobiographical interest in his essay on women, that his view was largely influenced by his relations with his mother, just as one feels that his particular argument in his essay on education is largely influenced by the course of his ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... to reproduce the social life of New York city. The previous failure was repeated. An air of ridiculous unreality is given to this part of the story in which the impossible talk of impossible people is paraded as a genuine representation of what takes place in civilized society. The autobiographical form which he had first adopted in this tale he continued in the two series of "Afloat and Ashore." These appeared respectively in June and in December, 1844. They are essentially one novel, though the second part goes usually in this country under the title of "Miles ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... length on this drama on account of the real value of its thought and, above all, on account of what one may call its autobiographical interest. It was at this time that Strauss's mind began to take more definite form. His further experience will develop that form still more, but without making any important change ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... the essays on flies, or Diptera, from the Souvenirs entomologiques, to which I have added, in order to make the dimensions uniform with those of the other volumes of the series, the purely autobiographical essays comprised in the Souvenirs. These essays, though they have no bearing upon the life of the fly, are among the most interesting that Henri Fabre has written and will, I am persuaded, make a special appeal to the reader. The chapter ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... Goldoni and Alfieri. Be that as it may, this is certain: a perfectly conceived idea never fails to express itself in perfect form. Ibsen did not shirk the labour of making his conceptions as hard, and definite, and self-supporting as possible. No matter how autobiographical some of his best plays may be, he is too good an artist to allow them to lean on his personal experience; they have to stand firmly on their own feet. Ibsen, therefore, worked his conceptions to such a degree of hardness ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... difficulties in mastering shorthand he has written feelingly in that novel which contains so much autobiographical material—David Copperfield. "I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography ... and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... for a vengeful daemon, driving its victim into desert places; and Shelley, prompted by Peacock, chose it for the title of a poem which describes the Nemesis of solitary souls. Apart from its intrinsic merit as a work of art, "Alastor" has great autobiographical value. Mrs. Shelley affirms that it was written under the expectation of speedy death, and under the sense of disappointment, consequent upon the misfortunes of his early life. This accounts for ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... she went out greedily in search of fresh variety, how could she bring it into his present prison? If she spent too much time with him, inevitably they would exhaust their fund of gossip. Then they would be driven into becoming autobiographical, and that would be the finish of their ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Italy afforded, or which her friends could send to her—novels, for which she confessed to a great liking; poems, political pamphlets, newspapers, all that came to her hand. Her longest and greatest poem, Aurora Leigh, was written during her Italian years. While the story of the poem is in no sense autobiographical, the heroine is in her beliefs and her ideals Mrs. Browning's self, and this was the poem by which she felt herself ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... whom I must have related an extraordinary rigmarole. He shook his head, saying that I was unintelligible; but the questions he put to me, 'Why had I no hat on in the open street?—Where did my mother live?—What was I doing out alone in London?' were so many incitements to autobiographical composition to an infant mind, and I tumbled out my history afresh each time that he spoke. He led me into a square, stooping his head to listen all the while; but when I perceived that we had quitted the region of shops I made myself ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... life of love. So with Rossetti's sonnets. They may or may not be "occasional." Many readers who enter with sympathy into the series of feelings they present will doubtless insist upon regarding them as autobiographical. Others, who think they see the stamp of reality upon them, will perhaps accept them (as Hallam accepted the Sonnets of Shakspeare) as witnesses of excessive affection, redeemed sometimes by touches of nobler sentiments—if affection, however excessive, needs to be redeemed. Others ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... either sponge or tub. As he moved backwards and forwards between his chest of drawers and dressing-table, he would cast frequent affectionate glances at his double, now in the glass of the armoire, now in that above the chimney. He was favouring me meantime with a running monologue of an autobiographical complexion. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... having to produce imperfect work, and was jealously anxious to clear his reputation, as a writer, in the matter of this particular comedy, is no less apparent from the very unusual personal explanation he offered for it, soon after the brief run of the play was over. For no man was more shy of autobiographical revelations. His biographers are continually reduced to gleaning stray hints, here and there, concerning his private life. [5] And therefore we can measure by this emergence from a habitual personal reticence the soreness with which ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... irritation is reached when, having troubled to write down autobiographical details, having wrestled with your modesty and overthrown it, having posted your letter and prepaid it, the —— editor rejects your contribution without thanks. This hard fate overtook me—moi qui vous parle—not very long ago. The conductor of a penny ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... best work he had yet written. "Dombey and Son" followed, and afterward "David Copperfield," to which Dickens transferred his affections from "Chuzzlewit." This new "child of fancy," as he called it, was so largely autobiographical as to be accepted by many as being a recounting of his own early struggles as a poor boy in London, and his early literary labours. He himself said: "I seemed to be sending a part of myself into ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun |
