THE PATH of a biographer leads to strange and often fas-
cinating places. It always leads farther than at first anticipated. It
usually takes longer than originally planned--longer than anyone
who has not written such a book can ever understand. The biog-
rapher never knows when or where he may come across some detail
which will add to his knowledge of his subject. He can never tell
what hidden source may reveal untold and often unexpected treas-
ure--or, on the other hand, what trail, after long and discouraging
search, may lead to a dead end. He uncovers much he will never
use. He finds many details which at the time assume importance
but later fade into the background. Yet, in spite of the difficulties
and the problems encountered in such a search, the task of a biog-
rapher is among the most rewarding. It is rewarding not only for the
material discovered but for the friends made along the way.

In the tracing of the life of Maria Mitchell this path has led first
to Nantucket, then to other New England towns and cities--to
Boston, to Lynn, to Cambridge, to Middlebury, Vermont. It has
wandered across the border into New York State--to Poughkeepsie,
the scene of the later years of her life; to New York City,
to Millbrook and Dover Plains in Dutchess County. It has even
gone into the West and the South of the nineteenth century,
and into the England, the France, the Italy and the Germany of
that same period. Some of these journeys have been made physi-
cally, others in the imagination. As it is impossible to write the life
of an astronomer without venturing beyond the earth's bounds, the
latter method has been particularly necessary in the writing of this

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