From the preface:
Like the rest of the volumes in this series, this book comprises a selection of brief biographies of eminent men and women in various departments of life. Great and good men and women are profitable company; and a stimulus to better things flows from their lives and deeds. Their influence may help to check a tendency to move along in commonplace grooves; they help to elevate the ideal of our lives; not only so, but a record of superior goodness, of extraordinary perseverance, of heroic endurance in well-doing, act like a revelation upon the ordinary mind, and point to a higher level of possible attainment for even the humblest and least gifted members of society.
Contents:
Lucy Hutchinson (Lucy Hutchinson, a 17th century poet and translator, and the first person to translate the complete text of Lucretius’s De rerum natura)
Lady Rachel Russell (a 17th-18th century author and prolific writer, who raised money to help save her husband from execution. The money was raised, but her husband was executed anyway.)
Frederich Perthes (a 17th-18th century bookseller and publisher, who established one of the first publishing houses in Germany, and who resisted Napoleon’s advances into Germany.)
Robert Moffat (an 18th century Scottish missionary to Africa, father-in-law of David Livingstone, and first translator of the Bible into Setswana.)
Janet Hamilton (a 19th century Scottish poet)
Sir David Brewster (a 19th century British scientist and inventor, who was a pioneer in photography and invented the first portable 3D-viewing device.”
Charles Knight (a famous publisher of encyclopedias, almanacs and other books)
