This five-volume work consists in biographies of the most important writers and thinkers of their time, since 14th until 19th century. Most of them were written by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley. Her extensive knowledge of history and languages, her ability to tell a gripping biographical narrative, and her interest in the burgeoning field of feminist historiography are reflected in these works. She wrote in a style that combined secondary sources, memoir, anecdote, and her own opinions. Her political views are most obvious in the Italian Lives, where she supports the Italian independence movement and promotes republicanism; in the French Lives she portrays women sympathetically, explaining their political and social restrictions and arguing that women can be productive members of society if given the proper educational and social opportunities. Contents: Vol. 1: Lives of the most eminent literary and scientific men of France (Part. I): Montaigne Rabelais Corneille Rochefoucauld Molière La Fontaine Pascal Madame de Sévigné Boileau Racine Fénélon Vol. 2: Lives of the most eminent literary and scientific men of France (Part. II): Voltaire Rousseau Condorcet Mirabeau Madame Roland Madame de Staël. Vol. 3: Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal (Part. I): Dante Petrarch Boccaccio Lorenzo de' Medici,&c. Bojardo Berni Ariosto Machiavelli Vol. 4: Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal (Part. II): Galileo Guicciardini Vittoria Colonna Guarini Tasso Chiabrera Tassoni Marini Filicaja Metastasio Goldoni Alfieri Monti Ugo Foscolo Vol. 5: Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal (Part. III): Boscan Garcilaso de la Vega Diego Hurtado de Mendoza Luis de Leon Herrera Saa de Miranda Jorge de Montemayor Castillejo The early dramatists Ercilla Cervantes Lope de Vega Vicente Espinel; Esteban de Villegas Gongora Quevedo Calderon Early poets of Portugal Camoens

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practiced by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and Enlightenment political theories.