Book Description
This volume will serve its purpose if it proves a useful companion to ordinary everyday readers of English literature. It is necessarily a work of compilation and selection, because the range of the possible subject-matter is so great. English literature has a continuous history of over a thousand years, it has been produced in many lands, and there is no subject on which it does not touch. Completeness in a moderate compass, and the equipment of a specialist at all points, are therefore impossible.