Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from English Prose From Bacon to Hardy
The choice of passages has often been guided by what is characteristic of an author or period rather than by what is intrinsically best. In the case of Dickens, fer instance, the chapter on the death of Little Nell has been included because it represents an important side of the novelist's work better than some passages less open to criticism. In most cases, fortunately, it has been possible to reconcile the two principles of selection. An attempt has been made, in a way not usually done in books of selections, to present the various aspects of an author's work. Thus Bacon is represented not only by some of his essays, but also by passages from The Advancement of Learning and The Life of Henry VII. Other examples which illustrate the same purpose are Swift, Johnson, Scott, Coleridge, and Stevenson. One feature of the book which may be mentioned is the selection from the essayists and letter-writers of the eighteenth century. The main purpose in this case is to throw some light on the social background of literature at the time, and to represent fairly liberally two types of literature peculiarly characteristic of the period. No similar selections from the nineteenth century have been given because the compact literary society of the previous age had disappeared and the more complex conditions which replaced it could not be illustrated in the same simple way. There is also the reason that many of the greatest nineteenth-century letter-writers are known chiefly as poets. 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.
