ENGLISH LITERATURE EDITED BY JOHN BUCHAN WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SIR HENRY NEWBOLT Illustrated THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD. LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK PR DEARBORN CAMPUS LIBRARY 85 1876 1925 First printed, September 1923 Third Impression, August 1925 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT PREFACE THIS book has been prepared to some extent on the model of the Histoire illustrée de la Littérature Française, published by Henri Didier of Paris. The French work has been followed in the general arrangement of subjects, in the method of illustration, and in the bibliographies. There seemed to the Publishers to be room for a history of English literature which should occupy a middle place between the mere summary of the text-book and the more elaborate compendium in several volumes, and which should be at once a manual for the student and a book which could be used with profit by the general reader. The aim has been to give a prospect of the long course of English letters, showing the organic connection between the stages and the affiliations of the various schools, and to provide a critical and historical account of the writers which might serve as an introduction to the fuller study of their work. It was found impossible, without making the book of a clumsy thickness, to provide adequate extracts, and these are only given to illustrate a point of criticism. The book has been prepared on a plan, which, however, has been occasionally departed from, where adherence to it would have been pedantic. The contributors have attempted throughout to show that English literature is a living thing, intimately connected with English life, and their appeal is not only to professed students of the subject in the secondary schools and universities, but to the great body of readers who desire a survey of the whole to supplement their study of a part, and who are in need of guidance in their reading. Consequently the book opens at that point in the history of English literature when it becomes interesting to the ordinary man. The story of the Origins is told fully, for the convenience of students, in the chapters of the Appendix. The work was begun before the War, and, as is inevitable in composite works, a good deal of adjustment and interpolation has been found necessary. The Editor desires to record his gratitude to Dr. ERNEST A. BAKER, Director of the University of London School of Librarianship, and to Sir HENRY NEWBOLT for their invaluable assistance in the work of arrangement and revision. The following scholars have been responsible for the preparation of the different sections: |