History of English Literature : Complete in One Volume [john Wurtele Lovell Edition 1879, Carefully Revised and Compared to the Original, the Saxons, the Normans, the New Tongue, the Pagan Renaissance, the Theatre, Ben Johnson, Shakspeare, & more]

ohn Wurtele Lovell, New York, 1879. Complete in one volume. Translated from the French by Henri Van Laun, one of the masters at the Edinburgh Academy. New edition, with a preface dated 1873. Embossed cloth hardcover; 722 pages plus index; no dust jacket. This comprehensive history and critical study traces the development of English literature from the Saxons and Normans through the Renaissance, Elizabethan theatre, Restoration, eighteenth century, Romantic movement, and Victorian period. Taine examines literature in relation to national character, religion, philosophy, politics, social conditions, and historical change, with substantial discussion of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Addison, Swift, Byron, Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, Macaulay, Tennyson, and other major figures. Some fraying and wear at the spine ends and corners, with light rubbing and general age-related wear to the binding. Previous owner's handwritten inscription dated March 1893 on the title page; the remaining text is clean and the volume is complete, sound, firmly readable, and notably attractive for its age. A handsome nineteenth-century edition for a collector, literary scholar, student of English cultural history, or anyone building a classic home library. It would make a thoughtful and distinctive gift for a reader of English literature-or an especially satisfying gift for yourself.…