Introductory note on Percy Bysshe Shelley (The Ridpath Library of Universal Literature)

From the title of a recently popular novel, we know that one prominent fiction writer of to-day was inspired by the verses of Shelley. Many others have also felt the stirring vigor of his poetry. What is your reaction? (Volume 41, Harvard Classics)

Introductory note on Thomas Browne (Volume 3, Harvard Classics)

The religion of Thomas Browne - a liberal man in a most intolerant time - was not taken from either Rome or Geneva, but from his own reason. (Volume 3, Harvard Classics)

Browne visited by Evelyn of "Evelyn Diary," Oct. 17, 1671.

Introductory note on Hippocrates (Volume 38, Harvard Classics)

Once physicians treated the sick with a mixture of medicine and charms. In those days medicine was regarded as a dark art like magic, and those practicing it formed guilds to protect themselves. (Volume 38, Harvard Classics)

Introductory note on Amerigo Vespucci (Volume 43, Harvard Classics)

They are a people smooth and clean of body because of continually washing themselves --- they eat all their enemies whom they kill or capture." Amerigo Vespucci thus writes of the New World inhabitants. (Volume 43, Harvard Classics)

Amerigo Vespucci returns from first American voyage, Oct. 15, 1498.