The first of all original documentary biography is autobiography. A man knows more about his own life than anyone else and he is quite as likely to tell the truth about it as his official biographer. “The Story of My Life” is always an attractive title, no matter who the hero is. If an autobiography has continued to find readers for a number of years, it is likely to be worth looking at. Sometimes men who are not entitled to be called great have written great autobiographies. The “Autobiography” of Joseph Jefferson is full of delightful humor and sweetness. At a time when the theater is not an institution of which we are proud and actors as they appear in the public prints are usually bores and vulgarians, Jefferson’s “Autobiography” will give the reader a new sense of the potential dignity of the stage and of the humanity of the actor’s profession. Among the great men who have written autobiographies we have mentioned Mill and Franklin and Grant. Others who have written delightful volumes of self-portraiture are Goethe, Gibbon, Trollope, Mrs. Oliphant. As a working rule, I should suggest that when you are interested in a man, you should first read his autobiography if he wrote one. If he did not, turn to the most complete story of his life, the one that contains whatever letters and documents have survived. And as a third choice try to find a life of him by some writer who was intimate with him during his life, or who is an expert in the subject to which his life was devoted, or who is a master in the art of biography. LIST OF BIOGRAPHIES _Supplementary to Chapter VIII_ This list of biographies does not constitute a catalogue of great men. It merely gives some biographies that have literary quality or some other quality that makes them important. The subject of the biography is given first whenever the person written about would naturally come into the mind before the author of the book; thus: Samuel Johnson; “Life” by James Boswell. In other cases the author comes first; thus: Plutarch; Lives. JOHN AND ABIGAIL ADAMS. _Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife, Abigail Adams, During the Revolution._ JOSEPH ADDISON. _Life_, by William John Courthope. In _English Men of Letters_. THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. _Life_, by Ferris Greenslet. ALFRED THE GREAT. _Life_, by Walter Besant. HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL. _Journal_, translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS. _Confessions of St. Augustine._ A remarkable autobiography. Pusey’s translation is in _Everyman’s Library_. FRANCIS BACON. _Life and Letters_, edited by James Spedding. JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE. _Margaret Ogilvy._ Barrie’s life of his mother; a delicious book. GEORGE HENRY BORROW. _The Bible in Spain._