[Illustration: _From a photograph by H.S. Mendelssohn, 27, Cathcart
Road, South Kensington, London._ ANNIE BESANT. 1885]




ANNIE BESANT

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Illustrated


LONDON

SECOND EDITION






PREFACE.

It is a difficult thing to tell the story of a life, and yet more
difficult when that life is one's own. At the best, the telling has a
savour of vanity, and the only excuse for the proceeding is that the
life, being an average one, reflects many others, and in troublous
times like ours may give the experience of many rather than of one.
And so the autobiographer does his work because he thinks that, at the