About The Biographies Project

It's only natural, I think, to be curious about the motives, lives, and times of the authors we read. This is especially true of authors from other times and places, coming as they do from contexts foreign to us. The biography links are meant to satisfy this curiosity, or at least to provide the means to satisfying it.

ModernLib's Priorities

The links go to sites offering what appear to be authoritative biographies. When two bios appear to be of equal merit, I link to the one that has direct links to additional information about that author, hir works, hir philosophy, or to the times in which s/he lived.

Here in order of priority ("1" being the highest) are the criteria used to determine what document to link to:

  1. Apparent permanence on the Web
  2. Accuracy
  3. Uniqueness
  4. Completeness
  5. Ancillary information
  6. Illustrated
  7. Fast loads
  8. No or limited advertising banners, pop-ups, or animations

Got a Better one?

I couldn't find biographies for some authors, and I need better choices for some of the links already made. If you know of a better biography than the one ModernLib is currently using—that is, one that uses more of the items in the Priorities list in a better way— or if you know of a link to missing biography, please let me know.

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