Excerpt from The Making of English Literature Each chapter marks a chronological advance on the preceding chapter, except in the last book. There, for reasons suggested in the text, the three chapters deal with three separate departments of the literature of a single period - prose, the novel, and poetry. The titles of the various books and chapters are in harmony With the pur pose to make the volume a discussion of literature and literary movements rather than of general English history. Various helps to more extended study are given in an Appendix, where they may be easily referred to in con nection with the treatment of each period, but where they will not interfere with the continuous reading of the text. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.

Excerpt from The Making of English This little work was announced as in preparation some years ago, but illness compelled me to lay it aside when only a few pages had been written, and since then my health has seldom permitted me to attempt any work in addition to my daily task as one of the editors of the Oxford English Dz'ctz'onai. Some of the faults of this volume may be due to the desultory manner in which it has been composed; but, on the other hand, the length of time that has elapsed since it was first planned has given me opportunity for more care ful consideration of difficult points. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.

Excerpt from An Outline History of English Literature The purpose and plan of this little book may easily be gathered from the introductory chapter. Only a few words of preface, therefore, are needed. As I conceive it, a history of English literature, however brief, should still be a history of English literature in fact as well as in name and for a history something more is required than a list of authors and their books, and even than a chrono logically - arranged collection of biographical sketches and critical appreciations. It is true that a nation's literature is made up of the works of individual writers, and that for the ordinary purposes of study these writers may be detached from their surroundings and treated separately. But we cannot get a history of such literature unless and until each one has been put into his place in the sequence of things and considered with reference to that great body of literary production of which his work must now be regarded as a part. A history of English literature, then, must be interested primarily in English literature as a whole. Its chief aim should be to give a clear and systematic account, not of the achievements of successive great writers merely, as such, but of national changes and development. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.

Excerpt from The Foundations of English Literature The object of this book is to present a careful study of the origins of English literature, and to trace its development up to the time when it assumed its permanent form. The author has attempted to show that the literature of England has been a gradual growth; that it has flowed out of the national life and is inseparably intertwined with the national history; that its development has been constant and consecutive from the very first, and that it commences not with Chaucer but with the primal poetry. The accumulation of a mass of names and dates, of biographical matter and encyclopaedic information, has not been attempted. All writers who were not materially concerned in the evolution of the literature have been omitted. The book is not "a storehouse of facts"; its aim is rather to clear away the confusing mass of details which has grown up about the subject and to expose the main outlines, to trace causes and effects, and to show that no author and no period exist as isolated phenomena, but that they are merely natural results of previous conditions. An attempt has been made to study the growth of the English spirit and to weigh all influences that have prominently affected it in any way. The civil and religious history of England has been kept constantly in view. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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."

Excerpt from History of English Literature During a long period of teaching English literature and of superintending the instruction of others in that branch, the author has repeatedly found that pupils who have not had consecutive instruction in the history of English litera ture have the most vague ideas of its development and of the relation of its parts. Various masterpieces seem like unconnected islands in an unexplored ocean. There is no way of making these masterpieces seem otherwise except by teaching the history and development of the literature of which they form a part. Mental association is based primarily on contiguity. Ideas must be grasped by the mind at the same time before they can be known to be related. It is difficult for young minds to knit into one fabric ideas which are presented at considerable intervals and under associations so different as occur in the study of various masterpieces. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.

Excerpt from The Story of English Literature It has been my endeavour, in writing this volume, to tell the story of the beginning and growth of English literature, in a form simple enough to interest the youngest students in our schools and homes and likely to help them to take pleasure in studying this too often neglected subject. In treating the various periods into which I have divided the history, I have devoted some space to describing the character of the age under consideration. All teachers are conscious of the difficulties which surround young students in their efforts to understand the works of authors who lived in times so distant and so different from our own. I need, therefore, make no apology for thus travelling outside the main province of a history of literature, if by so doing I have helped the reader to enter into the spirit of past ages. As biography is of special interest to the young, the lives of the great writers of each age are given a prominent place. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.

Excerpt from A History of English Literature The Beginnings of English Literature. The Difficulties attend ing them. The Advisability of taking Chaucer as our Starting Point. The Necessity of Knowing the Outlines of Earlier Days before even Chaucer is attempted. English literature may be said to begin with some fragments of poetry that date back as far as the fourth century; and, for the ten centuries following, our literature is extremely difficult to understand, because it is written either in Anglo Saxon, or else in one of the dialects of Middle English. It took a thousand years for English literature to develop properly; and we do not come across any author who can be easily mastered until we arrive at the middle of the fourteenth century. Then we find Geoffrey Chaucer one of the greatest of our poets, who died in the year 1400. We cannot, however, properly appreciate even his work unless we know something of the condition of English between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries; and this knowledge we must try to obtain by learning a little about the principal things that happened to the language before Chaucer's time. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.