Biographies

Elizabeth was born into an age of religious strife, in which plots and factions were everywhere and private beliefs could be punished by death. When she became queen, her counselors urged her to marry quickly and turn the responsibilities of governing over to her husband, But she outwitted them by stalling, changing her mind; and playing one side against another, as she steered her country to the glorious era of peace and security that would be called the Elizabethan Age.

A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt (Homeschool subjects covered: history renaissance and reformation, martyrs) Robert Bolt's classic play...

In 1520, thirteen-year-old Anne Boleyn, jealous of her older sister's beauty and position at court, declares that she will one day be queen of England, and that her sister will kneel at her feet. Though born without great beauty, wealth, or title, Anne Boleyn blossomed into a captivating woman. She used her wiles to win the heart of England's most powerful man, King Henry VIII, and to persuade him to defy everyone--including his own wife--to make her his new queen. But Anne's ambition proved to be her fatal flaw.

The king was going mad . . . So begins Polly Schoyer Brooks's account of one of history's most compelling stories and one of the world's most popular heroines-Joan of Arc. Brooks tells us of a fifteenth-century France ravaged by war, plague, and religious conflict; of a king who suffered fits of madness and his weak son who made a disappointing successor; and of a peasant girl from the countryside who accomplished what appeared to be miracles by rallying the dispirited French nation with her desire to see the rightful king rule. 

At the end of the 13th century, the oppressed Scots rebelled against England under the leadership of William Wallace, a scottish knight who fought for Scotland's independence, and Robert the Bruce, who was eventually crowned king of Scotland. This gripping tale of courage, loyalty, and ingenuity takes readers into heroic company with a fictional protagonist, young Archie Forbes, who fights alongside the legendary heroes.

"One of the most important figures to come out of the awakening world of the Renaissance was Galileo Galelei. Often referred to as the "Archimedes of his time" Galileo was forever asking questions. Is it possible to measure heat? Is it possible to weigh air? Does the earth stand still or does it move? How fast do objects fall to the earth? His questions led to some of the most important answers of the scientific world

When the great Velazquez was painting his masterpieces at the Spanish court in the seventeenth century, his colors were expertly mixed and his canvases carefully prepared by his slave, Juan de Pareja. In a vibrant novel which depicts both the beauty and the cruelty of the time and place, Elizabeth Borton de Trevino tells the story of Juan, who was born a slave and died an accomplished and respected artist.

"Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched" is what the people said. And that made young Gerhard Koestler smile. He knew that Erasmus had influenced Luther's thinking. He also believed both men were trying to serve God according to the Scriptures. Young Gerhard Koestler lived in Germany in the 1500s. He inherited money and a castle when his rich parents died. After a series of adventures and narrow escapes, Gerhard arrived in Basel, Switzerland, where he was able to live in the same house as Erasmus. Although Erasmus' enemies accused him of agreeing with Martin Luther, Erasmus said that the Bible was his guide.

In this brief and incisive book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills tells the story of the "Confessions"--what motivated Augustine to dictate it, how it asks to be read, and the many ways it has been misread in the one-and-a-half millennia since it was composed. Following Wills's biography of Augustine and his translation of the "Confessions," this is an unparalleled introduction to one of the most important books in the Christian and Western traditions.

Most people will remember Eric Liddell as the inspiration for the award-winning movie Chariots of Fire. But his life away from athletic competition was even more compelling and held an influence that reached all the way to a Japanese internment camp in China.

Early in May 1861, twenty-one-year-old Sam R. Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee, joined the First Tennessee Regiment, Company H, to fight for the Confederacy. Of the 120 original recruits in his company, Watkins was one of only seven to survive every one of its battles, from Shiloh to Nashville. Twenty years later, with a "house full of young 'rebels' clustering around my knees and bumping about my elbows," he wrote this remarkable account of "Co. Aytch".

Edward MacDowell and His Cabin in the Pines - a sensitive, appealing and lively biography of America's beloved composer which boys and girls (all others, too) will take to their hearts and treasure. His Quaker beginnings, his irrepressible interest in music, his youthful triumphs abroad, his visit to the master, Franz Liszt, who greeted him warmly and asked him back again to play at the festival in Zurich - his romance with his pupil, the lovely Marian Nevins, their marriage and return to America, the launching of the Peterboro, New Hampshire, colony, which bears his name - these are some of the delightful stories in the rich career of America's greatest composer, told gently, sensitively and with feeling, in a truly inspiring book.