This is one of the choicest books of the day for all who love literature, who would intelligently admire and affectionately enjoy the best essayists of England and the one great essayist of America. It is in a class by itself, since in no other volume can be found so much» that is best regarding writers who were best in essay writing. It is a book in which any college student will revel, a book to inspire and guide the thought of a class, and is at the same time a book to fascinate any lover of the essay.
Here are ten essays by Hazlitt, Carlyle, Macaulay, Thackeray, Newman, Bagelot, Pater,. Stephen, Morley, and Thomas Arnold, and they arecritical essays on Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” Lord Byron, Swift, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, Leonardo da Vinci, Scott, Macaulay, and Emerson.
Readings in english prose of the nineteenth century 1917
In each case the essays are those most typical of the author’s critical principles, and at the same time representative of the critical tendencies of his age. The subject matter provides interesting material for intensive study and classroom discussion.
There is a brief biographical introduction to each essay, and numerou» helpful notes. Without this book a class might search far and wide for as much that is indispensable, and waste no end of time with things worth far less and things worthless.
