Excerpt from Alfred the Great<br><br>From boyhood Alfred was remarkable for his quick intelligence, and was more beautiful and grace ful than his elder brothers. His generous and manly nature made him the pride of his parents and of the people of Wessex. Thus it came about that when only five years old he was chosen by King Ethel wulf in preference to his elder brothers for special honour.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.