Before Ralph Waldo Emerson was a great writer, he was a city boy who longed for the broad, open fields and deep, still woods of the country, and then a young man who treasured books, ideas, and people. When he grew up and set out in the world, he wondered, could he build a life around these things he loved? This biography illustrates the rewards of a life well-lived, one built around personal passions: creativity and community, nature and friendship....

"Katharine Lee Bates first wrote the lines to "America the Beautiful" on a summer evening after a stirring visit to Pikes Peak in 1893. But the story behind the song begins with Katharine herself, who grew up with memories of the country divided by the Civil War and pushed beyond conventional expectations of women to become an acclaimed writer, scholar, suffragist, and reformer. Katharine believed in the power of words to make a difference, and in...

A beginning biography of Mark Twain that relates the childhood incident which grew into one of his most famous books: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

A biography of a humorist, narrator, and social observer who is best known for writing "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".

Examines the life of the nineteenth-century author famous for the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which denounced slavery and intensified the disagreement between the North and South.

A biography of a great American humorist who had also been a printer, steamboat captain, news reporter, gold miner, and lecturer in a white linen suit.

Provides a brief biography of the noted American writer who was born Samuel Clemens.

Details the life and achievements of abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe whose book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is said to have started the Civil War.