The work of the life of Flaubert marks a step in the history of the novel. He was a prose author of the first rank; for several years indeed no one stood higher than Flaubert in France. His strength as a prosaist reposed upon an artistic and literary conscientiousness, which was exalted almost to the dignity of genius. He became a great artist because he was unsparing in his efforts, both when he was making preparations to write and when he was engaged in writing; he collected the results of his observations, facts, and illustrations, with the painstaking of a mere savant, while striving, with the passionate eagerness of a mere adorer of form, to fashion his materials in a plastic and harmonious manner. He became a master of modern fiction because he was sufficiently self-denying to be willing to represent real psychological events alone, and to shun all effects of poetic eloquence, all pathetic or dramatic situations which appeared beautiful or interesting at the expense of the truth. His name is synonymous with artistic earnestness and literary rigor.

Bjrnstjerne Bjrnson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1903. Beyond his fatherland Bjrnstjerne Bjrnson is known as a great poet. To Norway he is more than a poet. Not only has he written beautiful stories, songs, and dramas for his people; he lives the daily life of this people, and holds unbroken intercourse with them. He who has it in his power to create the most refined, the most delicate poetry, does not esteem himself above the rudest tasks, those of the journalist and the popular orator, where there is a question of furthering the moral and political education of the Norwegian people, by combating an error or a lie, or by ensuring the propagation of some simple, but as yet unrecognized truth. There emanates from him a breath of life. Where his spirit now penetrates there follows a development of self-knowledge and love of truth, national faults are shaken off, a growing interest is manifested in all intellectual topics, all public affairs, and a wholesome self-confidence appears side by side with this interest. He has grasped the significance of the poet's mission in its broadest sense.

This book deals with the life and works of Hans Christian Andersen, a great Danish writer, poet and fabulist, born at Odense, in 1805. In the spring of 1872 Andersen had an awkward accident, falling out of bed and severely hurting himself. He was never again quite well, but he lived till the 4th of August 1875, when he died in the house called Rolighed, near Copenhagen.

Paul Heyse was a great German novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1910. His father was a celebrated scholar and professor at the University; and he himself, while still a student, undertook a special tour in Italy in order to examine manuscripts in the libraries of Florence, Rome, and Venice. Whoever casts a glance on the long row of closely printed volumes which form Paul Heyse's complete works, and remembers that the author was born in the year 1830, will first of all be apt to exclaim, "What industry!" Involuntarily he will trace back this astonishing productiveness to a will power of rare endurance. None the less, however, does it owe its origin to a singularly fortunate nature. This nature possessed within itself so luxuriant a fruitfulness that it has yielded its harvest without the least effort of the will, without any undue exertion; it has yielded a harvest of such variety that we might believe it to be fostered according to a defined plan and with a painstaking will; nevertheless, it has obviously been permitted to act with thorough independence...

This book deals with the life and works of Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian Dramatist and Poet; with his personal and intellectual characteristics. Henrik Johan Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, at the little seaport of Skien, situated at the head of a long fiord on the south coast of Norway. When, at thirty-six years of age, he left Norway to go into that exile from which he has not yet returned, it was with a heavy and embittered heart, after a youth passed on the sunless side of life. His parents, on their paternal as well as maternal side, belonged to families of the highest standing in the town. His father was a merchant, engaged in varied and extensive activities, and enjoying the exercise of an almost unlimited hospitality. In 1836, however, the worthy gentleman was compelled to suspend payments, and from the wreck of his fortunes nothing was saved for his family but a country estate a short distance from the town. Thither they removed, and were thus carried beyond the range of the circles to which they had previously belonged. In "Peer Gynt" Ibsen has employed the recollections of his own childhood as a sort of model for his description of life in wealthy Jon Gynt's home. As a lad, Henrik Ibsen became apprentice in a drug-store. He worked his way through countless difficulties before he was able, at the age of twenty-two, to enter on a student's career; even then he had neither inclination nor means for professional study; for a long time he had not so much as the means to secure for himself regular meals. His youth was hard and stem, his daily life a straggle; the paternal roof seems to have offered him no place of refuge.