The nine essays of which this book consists, and of which even those that have already appeared in periodicals, have been thoroughly revised, are not to be regarded as "Chips from the Workshop" of a critic; they are carefully treated literary portraits, united by a spiritual tie. Men have sat for them, with whom the author, with one exception (Esaias Tegnér), has been personally acquainted, or of whom he has at least had a close view. To be sure, the same satisfactory survey cannot always be taken of a living present as of a completed past epoch; but perhaps a picture of the present as a whole may be furnished, the general physiognomy may be arrived at, by characterizing as faithfully and vividly as possible, some of its typical forms. The mode of treatment in these essays is greatly diversified. In some of them the individuality of the author portrayed is represented as exhaustively as possible; in others, an attempt has simply been made to present the man in actual person before the eyes of the reader; some are purely psychological; others offer a fragment of æsthetics; others, again, are eminently biographical and historical. In all of them the characteristics of the individual are so chosen as to bring out the most important features of the author's life and works. Even the personalities described are of a very heterogeneous nature. They belong to not less than six nationalities. Common to all of them, however, there is a something which is more easily felt than defined; they are modern authors. By this I do not mean that they all, without exception, with full consciousness, and with their whole hearts, have paid homage to the "modern" in art and in thought, but merely that they, even though in a very unequal degree,--which heightens the charm to the observer,--represent the modern style of mind. GEORG BRANDES. CONTENTS. PAUL HEYSE HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN JOHN STUART MILL ERNEST RENAN ESAIAS TEGNÉR GUSTAVE FLAUBERT FREDERIK PALUDAN-MÜLLER BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON HENRIK IBSEN [Illustration: PAUL HEYSE.] EMINENT AUTHORS OF THE 19TH CENTURY. PAUL HEYSE. 1875. "How does it happen," I asked recently of a distinguished portrait-painter, "that you, who formerly have made successful efforts in several other branches of art, have at last confined yourself wholly to portrait-painting?" "I think it is because it has given me the most pleasure," replied he, "to study and to perpetuate an object which has never existed before, and will never appear again."