Francis Parkman (1823-1893), American historian, brilliantly narrated the Anglo-French conflict for control of North America in a great multivolume work.

Francis Parkman was born to wealth in Boston, Mass., on Sept. 16, 1823. As an undergraduate at Harvard, he had the advantage of study with the historian Jared Sparks, who gave Parkman his first reading list on the "Old French War." Through letters of introduction to other scholars, Sparks eased the young man's path.

While still a sophomore (he graduated in 1844), Parkman planned a history of the "Old French War" which would end with England's conquest of Canada. An older contemporary historian, George Bancroft, who had gone over some of the ground later traversed by Parkman, provided a framework for his more gifted successor. James Fenimore Cooper's "Leather-Stocking Tales" and Sir Walter Scott's "Waverley Novels" were spurs to Parkman's ambition to write a great history on a North American theme...