three-or-five

Updated: May 14, 2025

She said: "We have often wished that genius would incline itself more frequently to the task of the biographer, that when some great or good person dies, instead of the dreary three-or-five volume compilation of letter and diary and detail, little to the purpose, which two-thirds of the public have not the chance, nor the other third the inclination, to read, we could have a real 'life, setting forth briefly and vividly the man's inward and outward struggles, aims, and achievements, so as to make clear the meaning which his experience has for his fellows.

Sarah Knowles Bolton - Lives of Girls Who Became Famous