Originally published in 1956, this anthology contains a total of sixty extracts, beginning with Thomas Malory and ending with Samuel Butler, with its aim being to introduce English prose literature to an audience of new readers and display the riches of English prose in its variety of style and rhythm. Arranged in chronological order, the author's selections have been made with the intention that each extract should be a complete idea, episode or description and that as many genres as possible are included. Notably, in the second half of the book James comments on each extract and sets each literary work in the context of its author's life and times. A glossary of old English words and a list of the most accessible editions of the epoch are also incorporated. This book will be of great value to literature scholars and to anyone interested in historical linguistics.

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Product details
- Date Published: October 2015
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781107554252
- length: 218 pages
- dimensions: 203 x 127 x 13 mm
- weight: 0.24kg
- availability: Temporarily unavailable - available from TBC
Table of Contents
Preface
Texts
The Anthology:
1. Thomas Malory, 1485, Le Morte d'Arthur
2. Lord Berners, 1523–5, Sir John Froissart: Of the Chronicles of England etc. (translation)
3. Thomas More, 1551, Utopia (in the translation of Ralph Robynson)
4. Richard Hakluyt, 1598–1600, Principal Navigation, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation
5. Thomas North, 1579, Plutarch's Lives (translation)
6. Philip Sidney, 1595, An Apologie for Poetrie
7. John Lyly, 1580, Euphues and his England
8. Thomas Nashe, 1584, The Unfortunate Traveller
9. Francis Bacon, 1597, Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
10. Authorised version of the Bible, 1611, Ecclesiastes
11. Thomas Dekker, 1603, The Wonderful Year 1603
12. John Donne, 1640, LXXX Sermons
13. Robert Burton, 1621, The Anatomy of Melancholy
14. Izaak Walton, 1653, The Compleat Angler
15. Jeremy Taylor, 1650–1, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying
16. Thomas Browne, 1658, Urn Burial
17. John Milton, 1644, Areopagitica
18. Lord Clarendon, 1702–4, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England
19. John Bunyan, 1678, The Pilgrim's Progress
20. Thomas Traherne (1908), Centuries of Meditations
21. Samuel Pepys, (1825), Diary
22. John Aubrey, (1813), Brief Lives
23. John Dryden, 1688, An Essay of Dramatick Poesy
24. Samuel Johnson, 1779–81, Lives of the Poets
25. Daniel Defoe, 1722, The Life of Colonel Jack
26. Jonathan Swift, 1704, A Tale of a Tub
27. Joseph Addison, 1711, The Spectator
28. Richard Steele, 1711, The Spectator
29. Samuel Richardson, 1747–8, Clarissa Harlowe
30. Henry Fielding, 1749, Tom Jones
31. Tobias Smollett, 1751, Peregrine Pickle
32. Laurence Sterne, 1760–7, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
33. James Boswell, 1791, Life of Samuel Johnson
34. Horace Walpole, 1781, Letter to Lady Ossory
35. Edward Gibbon, 1776–88, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
36. Edmund Burke, 1790, Reflections on the French Revolution
37. Jane Austen, 1816, Emma
38. Walter Scott, 1818, The Heart of Mid-Lothian
39. William Hazlitt, 1823, The Plain Speaker
40. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817, Biographia Literaria
41. John Keats, 1818, Letter to Richard Woodhouse
42. Charles Lamb, 1823, Essays of Elia
43. Thomas De Quincey, 1822, Confessions of an English Opium-eater
44. Walter Savage Landor, 1824–9, Imaginary Conversations
45. Thomas Carlyle, 1837, The French Revolution
46. Lord Macaulay, 1843, Critical and Historical Essays
47. Emily Brontë, 1847, Wuthering Heights
48. Charlotte Brontë, 1853, Villette
49. Charles Dickens, 1836–7, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
50. William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847–8, Vanity Fair
51. John Ruskin, 1843–60, Modern Painters
52. Walter Pater, 1873, The Renaissance
53. John Henry Newman, 1864, Apologia pro vita sua
54. Matthew Arnold, 1865, Essays in Criticism
55. George Elliot, 1860, The Mill on the Floss
56. Thomas Hardy, 1891, Tess of the d'Urbevilles
57. Lewis Carroll, 1872, Through the Looking-glass
58. Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881–3, Treasure Island
59. George Meredith, 1879, The Egoist
60. Samuel Butler, 1903, The Way of All Flesh
Commentary
Glossary
A list of the most accessible editions.
Look Inside
Editor
Eirian James