Introductory note on Sir Walter Raleigh (Volume 33, Harvard Classics)

Savages who drink the powdered bones of their dead mixed with wine, Amazons who hold riotous festivals, the worship of golden statues, all the primitive wonders of Guiana are described by the famous Elizabethan gallant, Sir Walter Raleigh. (Volume 33, Harvard Classics)

Introductory note on J. C. Friedrich von Schiller (Volume 32, Harvard Classics)

Who has ever thought the arts had anything to do with freedom? Schiller did. Forced by a German noble to enter a military school, he escaped. Struggling to achieve freedom, he wrote a series of letters on the relation of art to freedom. (Volume 32, Harvard Classics)

Friedrich von Schiller died May 9, 1805.

Introductory note on Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Volume 18, Harvard Classics)

Lady Teazle hides in haste when her husband is unexpectedly announced. Situations which set many tongues wagging and fed the fire of gossip in Scandal-land, startle the reader. (Volume 18, Harvard Classics)

"School for Scandal" produced at Drury Lane, May 8, 1777.

Introductory note on Robert Browning (the Ridpath Library of Universal Literature)

A haughty aristocrat, who murdered his wife for enjoying life more than he, now bargaining for a new bride; a crafty bishop begging and bullying his heirs for a tomb richer than that of his rival; these are subjects of Browning's pen. (Volume 42, Harvard Classics)

Robert Browning born May 7, 1812.

Introductory note on Benvenuto Cellini (Volume 31, Harvard Classics)

"Benvenuto, the figure cannot succeed in bronze," so spoke the patron Duke. Cellini, stung to fury, passionately burst out: "You do not understand art." Feverishly he began the casting of the statue --- but read his own account of the tilt with the Duke. (Volume 31, Harvard Classics)