Published by Julian Messner Inc. - 264 Total Books
The editors of Julian Messner, Inc. found that there was a great desire among librarians, parents, teachers, and intelligent readers for really authoritative biographies of characters of interest for this generation. The subject of each title in the Shelf has been carefully chosen to meet this need for modern narrative biographies. All of the books are by well-known authors who have had a special interest in and an enthusiasm for the particular character which has inspired them to recreate his life and meaning. All the books are well illustrated, printed in legible type, well bound, and with colorful jackets. More titles are in preparation and will be added to the Shelf of Biographies in accordance with its exacting standards. Most of these titles have indexes, glossaries, opus lists, chronologies, maps and bibliographies. All have been carefully checked by experts in historical background, etc., in order to insure strict accuracy in fact and implication. (From the dust jacket of Road to Alaska: The Story of the Alaska Military Highway)
This series is officially called "The Julian Messner Shelf of Biographies". However, most of us refer to them as "Messner Biographies" or "Messner Shelf of Biographies".
Many of the titles in this series were reprinted by Kingston House as well as The Junior Literary Guild. Note: We did not include any of the biographies of sports heroes in our list at this time, specifically those written by Milton J. Shapiro and Gene Schoor. This decision was made after doing some research into these titles, and reading this article (the article has since been removed from the site so the link is to the Internet Archive version where you can still read it).
Please print and enjoy this alphabetical order list of the Messner Shelf of Biographies. Happy hunting!
Feel free to share reviews of individual titles you’ve read in the comments below!