Biographies Documents

Rufus Griswold, purporting to be Poe's friend, wrote a very unflattering and damaging obituary after Poe's death.

This issue of the Southern Literary Messenger - dated December, 1835 - contains Poe's story M.S. Found in a Bottle.  (See "Selected Prose Article...

Image of the preface page from The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, written by William Still. Click on the ima...

Image of the 2nd page of the preface from The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters written by William Still. Click ...

An excerpt from Treating Drug Problems - published by the Institute of Medicine - tells us an interesting story about Abraham Lincoln. At the time he...

This contemporary article, commenting on the words of Frederick Douglass, reflects the respect which abolitionists had for Frederick Douglass. The ar...

Image of an article from the Rochester Post Express about the life of Frederick Douglass. Click on the image for a better view.

Frederick Douglass, a widower after Anna Murray Douglass died, married Helen Pitts (a white woman) in 1884.  At the time, many people did not ap...

Image of Damon Runyon's column from the Los Angeles Examiner that ran for nine years.  Column depicted, circa 1938. Click on the image for a bet...

When John Dillinger used a wooden gun to escape from the Lake County jail in Crown Point, Indiana, Melvin Purvis sent Director Hoover a telegram. ...

From the first biography of Frederick Douglass, this image depicts the author's comments about his subject. Click on the image for a better view.

  How did Beethoven react to the death of his brother Karl, who had been ill for some time?  We can look to his letters to answer that ques...