Alexander the Great

Jacob Abbott tells the life of Alexander for young readers in twelve chapters: his boyhood in Macedon under King Philip, his lessons with Aristotle and the taming of the horse Bucephalus, his accession at twenty, the crossing into Asia and the cutting of the Gordian knot, the victories over Darius at Issus and Arbela, the founding of Alexandria, the march to India and the sudden death in Babylon at thirty-two. Abbott explains the geography and the politics as he goes, and he judges his hero frankly, admiring the energy while condemning the cruelty and the drinking of the later years.

Abbott, a New England teacher and minister, wrote dozens of histories and biographies for children in the middle of the nineteenth century, and their clear storytelling has kept them in print. Lizzie Driver reads this one alone, in about six hours.