The Project Gutenberg EBook of William the Conqueror, by Jacob Abbott

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Title: William the Conqueror
Makers of History

Author: Jacob Abbott

Release Date: June 20, 2008 [EBook #25848]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Makers of History

William the Conqueror

BY

JACOB ABBOTT

WITH ENGRAVINGS

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1902

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and forty-nine, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District
of New York.

Copyright, 1877, by JACOB ABBOTT.

PREFACE.

In selecting the subjects for the successive volumes of this series, it
has been the object of the author to look for the names of those great
personages whose histories constitute useful, and not merely
entertaining, knowledge. There are certain names which are familiar, as
names, to all mankind; and every person who seeks for any degree of
mental cultivation, feels desirous of informing himself of the leading
outlines of their history, that he may know, in brief, what it was in
their characters or their doings which has given them so widely-extended
a fame. This knowledge, which it seems incumbent on every one to obtain
in respect to such personages as Hannibal, Alexander, Caesar, Cleopatra,
Darius, Xerxes, Alfred, William the Conqueror, Queen Elizabeth, and Mary
Queen of Scots, it is the design and object of these volumes to
communicate, in a faithful, and, at the same time, if possible, in an
attractive manner. Consequently, great historical names alone are
selected; and it has been the writer's aim to present the prominent and
leading traits in their characters, and all the important events in
their lives, in a bold and free manner, and yet in the plain and simple
language which is so obviously required in works which aim at permanent