Ocean State Libraries

First published in 1909. From the preface, "This book, which presents the whole splendid history of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the close of the Victorian Era, has three specific aims. The first is to create or to encourage in every student the desire to read the best books and to know literature itself rather than what has been written about literature. The second is to interpret literature both personally and historically, that...

Whether following the obsessions of Henry James, marveling at the "indispensible" Beatrix Potter, or exploring the Manichean world of Oliver Twist, Graham Greene revisits the books and authors of his lifetime. Here is Greene on Fielding, Doyle, Kipling, and Conrad; on The Prisoner of Zenda and the "revolutionary . . . colossal egoism" of Laurence Stern's epic comic novel, Tristram Shandy; on the adventures of both Allan Quatermain and Moll Flanders;...

Less than a year before his death in 1972, John Berryman signed a contract with his publisher for a book of prose, The Freedom of the Poet, for which he had made a selection from his published and unpublished writings. In his draft of a prefatory note, he acknowledged the influence of Eliot, Blackmur, Pound, and Empson on his critical thought, pointing out that "my interest in critical theory has been slight," and concluding: "But I have also borne...