This book aims to provide a general manual of English Literature for
students in colleges and universities and others beyond the high-school
age. The first purpos-es of every such book must be to outline the
development of the literature with due regard to national life, and to
give appreciative interpretation of the work of the most important
authors. The author has written the present volume because he has found
no other that, to his mind, combines satisfactory accomplishment of
these ends with a selection of authors sufficiently limited for
clearness and with ade-quate accuracy and fullness of details,
biographical and other. A manual, according to the author, should supply
a systematic statement of the important facts, so that the greater part
of the student's time, in class and without, may be left free for the
study of the literature itself.