James lane Allen 1850-
  A Courtship (’A Summer in Arcady’)
  Old King Solomon’s Coronation (’Flute and Violin’)

William Allingham 1828-1889
  The Ruined Chapel
  The Winter Pear
  O Spirit of the Summer-time
  The Bubble
  St. Margaret’s Eve
  The Fairies
  Robin Redbreast
  An Evening
  Daffodil
  Lovely Mary Donnelly

Karl Jonas LUDVIG Almquist 1793-1866
  Characteristics of Cattle
  A New Undine (from ‘The Book of the Rose’)
  God’s War

Johanna Ambrosius 1854-
  A Peasant’s Thoughts
  Struggle and Peace
  Do Thou Love, Too! 
  Invitation

Edmondo de Amicis 1846-
  The Light (’Constantinople’)
  Resemblances (same)
  Birds (same)
  Cordova (’Spain’)
  The Land of Pluck (’Holland and Its People’)
  The Dutch Masters (’Holland and Its People’)

Henri Frederic Amiel (by Richard Burton) 1821-1881
  Extracts from Amiel’s Journal: 
    Christ’s Real Message
    Duty
    Joubert
    Greeks vs.  Moderns
    Nature, and Teutonic and Scandinavian Poetry
    Training of Children
    Mozart and Beethoven

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I.

The Book of the Dead (Colored Plate). 
First English Printing (Fac-simile). 
Assyrian Clay Tablet (Fac-simile). 
John Adams (Portrait). 
John Quincy Adams (Portrait). 
Joseph Addison (Portrait). 
Louis Agassiz (Portrait). 
“Poetry” (Photogravure). 
Vittorio Alfieri (Portrait). 
“A Courtship” (Photogravure). 
“A Dutch Girl” (Photogravure).

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

Pierre Abelard. 
Edmond About. 
Abigail Adams. 
Aeschines. 
Aeschylus. 
Aesop. 
Grace Aguilar. 
William Harrison Ainsworth. 
Mark Akenside. 
Alcaeus. 
Louisa May Alcott. 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
Jean le Rond D’Alembert. 
Edmondo de Amicis.

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.  I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon’s teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.  And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book:  who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.  Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

     JOHN MILTON.