Because the figure of Thomas A. Sebeok looms so large throughout this volume, cited far more here than any other thinker (except, perhaps, Charles Darwin), and because the story of his founding of the contemporary interdiscipline of biosemiotics is recounted in some detail in the introductory overview of biosemiotics that is Chapter one of this volume, we will limit the comments that appear in this reading selection preface to just the barest biographical sketch, so as to allow the reader the pleasure of reading Sebeok's own account of the founding of the "biosemiotics' project in his own words in the following selection.