Aesop.
Grace Aguilar.
William Harrison Ainsworth.
Mark Akenside.
Alcaeus.
Louisa May Alcott.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
Jean le Rond D'Alembert.
Edmondo de Amicis.



_Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a
potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was
whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial
the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect
that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously
productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown
up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on
the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill
a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable
creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills
reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.
Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is
the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life._

_JOHN MILTON._