This work was first translated into English by Martha Walker Cook, and was given to the public without abridgment in 1859, in the pages of the _Freeman's Journal_, published in New York. The title page ran thus: 'Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. An Authentic Life from Contemporaneous Chronicles. From the German of Guido Goerres. By Mrs. Martha Walker Cook.' Mrs. Cook's translation has never appeared in book form. The rendering of the work in question differs in many important points from that given by Mrs. Cook. The life in the original is one of exceeding interest. The standpoint of its author is a Catholic one, he being a firm believer in the divinity of the mission of the maiden. Her career was full of marvels, every step marked by the wildest romance united to the strangest truths. Chained and exposed to the fury and brutality of the English soldiery, defenceless and alone, she yet knew how to preserve her virgin sanctity; the hero of the battle field, the deliverer of her country from the rule of the foreigner, she shed not human blood; deserted by her friends, she never ceased to pray for them; bewildered, betrayed, tried and condemned by the clergy of her own church, her firm faith never wavered. Her answers to the subtle metaphysical questions propounded to her by her judges on purpose to entrap her during her painful trial, are models of simplicity, innocence, and faith, mingled with keen intellect and intuitive perception of their bearing upon her fate. Maligned and persecuted by the English, deserted by the French, forgotten by the king she saved and crowned, betrayed and condemned by the ecclesiastics of the church she honored--she perished in the flames with the name of the Saviour she worshipped upon her pure, young lips. Her fame brightens with the increasing light of our own century, and her canonization is now loudly demanded from the Church. She has been celebrated in the most opposite domains of human intelligence, by historians, romancers, theologians, jurisconsults, philosophers, writers on tactics, politicians, genealogists, heralds, preachers, orators, epic, tragic, and lyric poets, magnetizers, demonologists, students of magic, rhapsodists, biographers, journalists, and critics, and yet we have never met with a single writer who appeared to comprehend her aright, or who was able to do justice to the marvellous simplicity, truth, modesty, and force of her character. A French author has drawn up a list of four hundred works dedicated to her history, but as yet this uncultured girl of nineteen has puzzled all her delineators! THE NATIONAL ALMANAC AND ANNUAL RECORD FOR THE YEAR 1864. Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 628 & 630 Chestnut street. For sale by J. Bradburn, 49 Walker street, New York.