Excerpt from Wagner and His Works, the Story of His Life, Vol. 1: With Critical Comments As regards the plan of this book, I have endeavored to avoid what might be called the chronological-mosaic style of biography, Which consists in presenting the facts in loose connection, in the year and month they occurred in. The arrangement here adopted of present ing the various phases of Wagner's history, activity, and personality in pictures complete in themselves, without neglecting the main chronological divisions, will, I hope, commend itself to the reader. This method is facilitated by the roving life Wagner led - the constant changes of residence from Dresden to Paris, to London, Vienna, Venice, Zurich, Lucerne, etc., Which add so much to the interest of his career. The frequent subdivisions into chapters and sub-chapters make it easy for readers Who care only for the biography, to skip the other parts. But Wagner the man was so thoroughly identified with Wagner the artist, that a complete biography had to include a consideration of his works too. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.