In this book, Mrs Henry Ady has amended and extended the official biography of the great peasant painter Jean François Millet that was started during his lifetime by his friend Alfred Sensier and completed by M. Paul Mantz, in the year 1881. The original work consisted of a large number of letters and recollections from Millet's own pen to Sensier. While these letters are of the utmost value and interest, many other important contributions to the subject have been made since its publication by French and American writers who were personally acquainted with Millet, and whose recollections reveal him under new and different aspects. The additional material included in this book shed a new light on Millet, and help to fill up the outline of his life and complete the picture. The smallest details that describe the character and genius of such a man are precious, and every incident in his life deserves to be remembered. For in Millet's case the man and the artist were closely bound together, and his art was in a special manner the outcome of his life.