Pott 8vo, cloth, 1s. net. Leather, gilt, 2s. net. (All volumes, with the exception of Works of Fiction, can be obtained bound in buckram, paper label, gilt top, 1s. 6d. net, also in parchment, gilt back, side, top, and silk marker, in case, 2s. 6d. net each.) Second Impression. Talk. 6. Emerson's Essays. Third Impression. 7. Keats' Poems. Second Impression. 8. Dickens' Oliver Twist. 9. The Ingoldsby Legends. Second Impression. 10. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Second Impression. 11. Darwin's Origin of Species. Second Impression. 12. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Second Impression. 13. English Songs and Ballads. Compiled by T. W. H. CROSLAND. Second Impression. 14. Charlotte Shirley. sion. 15. Hazlitt's Brontë's Second Impres Sketches and Essays. Second Impres sion. 16. Herrick's Poems. 17. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. 18. Pope's Iliad of Homer. Second impression. 19. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. Second Impression. 20. Swift's Gulliver's Travels. 21. Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Second Impression. 22. White's History of Selborne. 23. De Quincey's Opium Eater. 24. Bacon's Essays. 25. Hazlitt's Winterslow. 26. Hawthorne's Letter. 27. Macaulay's Scarlet Lays of 32. Selected English Essays. Chosen and arranged by W. PEACOCK. 33. Hume's Essays. 34. Burns' Poems. 35. Gibbon's Roman Empire. Vol. I. Complete in 7 Vols. 36. Pope's Odyssey of Homer. 37. Dryden's Virgil. 38. Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. 39. Longfellow's Poems. Vol. 1. Complete in 3 Vols. 40. Sterne's Tristram Shandy. 41. Buckle's History of Civilization. Vol. I. Complete in 3 Vols. 42. Chaucer's Works. Vol. I. From the text of Prof. SKEAT. (By permission of the Oxford University Press.) Complete in 3 Vols. 43. The Prince. By NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI. Translated by LUIGI RICCI. 44. Gibbon's Roman Empire. Vol. II. 45. English Prose. Chosen and arranged by W. PEACOCK. 46. Tolstoy's Essays and Letters. 47. Charlotte Brontë's Villette. 48. Buckle's History of Civilization. Vol. II. 49. Of the Imitation of Christ. THOMAS À KEMPIS. PREFACE THE object of the present volume of selections is to illustrate the development of English prose. Like the preceding volume of 'Selected English Essays' in the same series, the book is intended mainly for the use of young students, though it is hoped that it will appeal also to the general reader. The fourteenth century, the age of Chaucer, and of Mandeville and Wycliffe, suggested itself as the starting point; the works produced during that period marking the settlement of the language in the form which, with few differences, and those chiefly of spelling and vocabulary, is that of the present day. Difficulties of copyright and considerations of space, added to the invidiousness of making selections from the more recent authors, have prevented the work from being carried much beyond the first half of the nineteenth century. In making the selections, there has been no attempt to observe any common standard of length. I have been guided rather by the desire to present such specimens as should be both complete and interesting in themselves, and such as should, at the same time, be characteristic of the style of the various writers represented. The spelling, where necessary in the case of the earlier extracts, has been modernised. The few explanatory notes that have been added relate almost exclusively to words which are now entirely obsolete or not in general use. 161771 My thanks are due to the literary executors of the late Mr. Ruskin for their courtesy in allowing me to include the extract from 'Sesame and Lilies, and to Mr. George Allen for kindly confirming their permission. I have also to thank Miss Maud Brougham for generous assistance in the preparation of the work. W. P. 52, BRONDESBURY VILLAS, N.W. |