Life in English Literature : An Introduction for Beginners. Part 1. Chaucer to Ben Jonson.

Cloth, small 8vo, 19 cm, 576 pp. From the foreword: "The aim of this book is not to provide a complete outline of English Literature, but simply to arouse interest. For this reason, the subject has been approached from the human angle only. Character has been made its basis, and our one principle in selecting authors and extracts has been to put before the beginner only what he or she is likely to find interesting. .Our plan has been, solely from the beginner's point of view, to leave the dull authors out, and put the interesting ones in. Many authors who are absorbingly interesting at a later stage have been omitted, as have many of historical importance. The selections and grouping are entirely arbitrary, and sometimes unrepresentative. Stili, if we have produced what is, in the terms of our endeavour, a live and interesting book, we are unrepentant." Contents include: Foreword; Introduction; I Chaucer;II The Paston Letters; III Skelton;IV The English Bible; V The Renaissance; VI Spenser; VII Marlowe; VIII - XI Shakespeare; XII Ben Jonson. XIII Milon; XIV TheCavalier Poets; XV Prose of the Seventeenth Centur; XVI Dryden and Butler; XVII Two Diarists; XVIII Pope and the Age of Reason; XIX Addison, Steele, and Defoe; XX Dean Swift; XXI Dr. Johnson; Name and date on front pastedown endpaper, Good.…