Bond Donald F - The Literary History of England

A LITERARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND

A LITERARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND

VOLUME I

The Middle Ages (to 1500)

KEMP MALONE

Johns Hopkins University

ALBERT C. BAUGH

University of Pennsylvania

VOLUME II

The Renaissance (15001660)

TUCKER BROOKE

MATTHIAS A. SHAABER

University of Pennsylvania

VOLUME III

The Restoration and Eighteenth Century (16601789)

GEORGE SHERBURN

DONALD F. BOND

The University of Chicago

VOLUME IV

The Nineteenth Century and After (17891939)

SAMUEL C. CHEW

RICHARD D. ALTICK

The Ohio State University

A LITERARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND

Second Edition

Edited By Albert C. Baugh

VOLUME III

by
GEORGE SHERBURN

&

DONALD F.BOND

LONDON
ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL LTD

Published in Great Britain
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
Broadway House, 6874 Carter Lane
London, E.C.4

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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Second Edition 1967

Copyright 1967 by Meredith Publishing Company

Copyright 1948 by Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism

ISBN 0-203-39306-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-39589-1 (Adobe eReader Format)

SBN 7100 6130 7 (Print Edition)

The purpose of the work of which the present volume forms a part is to provide a comprehensive history of the literature of England, an account that is at once scholarly and readable, capable of meeting the needs of mature students and of appealing to cultivated readers generally. The extent of English literature is so great that no one can hope to read more than a fraction of it, and the accumulated scholarshipbiographical, critical, and historicalby which writers and their works, and the forms and movements and periods of English literature have been interpreted, is so vast that no single scholar can control it. A literary history by one author, a history that is comprehensive and authoritative over the whole field, is next to impossible. Hence, the plan of the present work. A general harmony of treatment among the five contributors, rather than rigid uniformity of method, has seemed desirable, and there is quite properly some difference of emphasis in different sections. It is hoped that the approach to the different periods will seem to be that best suited to the literature concerned. The original plan brought the history to an end with the year 1939 (the outbreak of the Second World War); but delay in publication caused by the war has per-mitted reference to a few events of a date subsequent to 1939.

Since it is expected that those who read this history or consult it will wish for further acquaintance with the writings and authors discussed, it has been a part of the plan to draw attention, by the generous use of footnotes, to standard editions, to significant biographical and critical works, and to the most important books and articles in which the reader may pursue further the matters that interest him. A few references to very recent publications have been added in proof in an effort to record the present state of scholarly and critical opinion.

As for the present volume, all that is necessary here is to record again the author's indebtedness to Professors Rodney M. Baine and Walter J. Bate, who made corrections in the manuscript, and to Professors Donald F. Bond and Arthur Friedman, who helped with the proof as well as the copy.

G. S.

The reception of the Literary History of England has been so gratifying as to call for a number of successive printings, and these have permitted minor corrections to be made. The present edition has a further aimto bring the book in line with the most recent scholarship. Small changes have been made in the plates wherever possible, but most of the additions, factual and bibliographical, are recorded in a Supplement. The text, Supplement, and Index are correlated by means of several typographical devices. Explanations of these devices appear on each part-title page as well as at the beginning of the Supplement and the Index.

The editor regrets that the authors of Books II, III, and IV did not live to carry out the revisions of those books, but their places have been ably taken by the scholars whose names appear with theirs in the list of collaborators. It has been the desire of the editor, as well as of those who have joined him, that each of these books should remain essentially as the original author wrote it, and we believe that other scholars would concur. Any new points of view, it is hoped, are adequately represented in the Supplement.

A.C.B.

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