LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664650740

Table of Contents

       INTRODUCTION

       PART I SOME ENGLISH CLASSICS

       I TOM JONES

       II WUTHERING HEIGHTS

       III CHARLES LAMB

       IV JAMES BOSWELL

       V WILLIAM HAZLITT

       VI SAMUEL PEPYS

       VII WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

       VIII JOHN DONNE

       IX SUCH A BOOK AS THE BEGGAR'S OPERA

       PART II SOME CONTEMPORARIES

       I GEORGE SANTAYANA

       II THE POEMS OF FRANCIS BRETT-YOUNG

       III THE POEMS OF IRIS TREE

       IV THE POEMS OF ALDOUS HUXLEY

       V THE POEMS OF ROBERT GRAVES

       VI J. D. BERESFORD

       VII NIGHT AND DAY

       VIII E. C. BOOTH

       IX FORD MADOX HUEFFER

       X THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE

       XI E. M. FORSTER

       XII SHEILA KAYE-SMITH

       PART III BOOKS ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

       I A HISTORY OF MODERN COLLOQUIAL ENGLISH —BY H. C. WYLD

       II THE ROMANCE OF WORDS —BY ERNEST WEEKLEY

       III THE ROMANCE OF NAMES —BY ERNEST WEEKLEY

       IV THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE —BY LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

       PART IV CERTAIN FOREIGNERS

       I MONTAIGNE

       II NEKRASSOV (1821-1877)

       III PUSHKIN (1799-1837)

       IV LÈRMONTOV (1814-1841)

       V GOGOL (1809-1852)

       VI TURGENEV (1816-1883)

       VII GONCHAROV (1812-1891)

       VIII DOSTOIEVSKY (1821-1881)

       IX TOLSTOY (1828-1910)

       X TCHEHOV (1860-1904)

INTRODUCTION

       Table of Contents

      From reviews that I have read of earlier books of mine I have at last learnt wisdom. It seems that I must be explicit about my intentions in a preface in order to save the critics the trouble of reading the book through.

      Now it must be remembered that literary critics are men of intelligence who have read everything and damned most things. Very few indeed are the books which they allow to be worth the trouble that must have been taken to write them.

      And it is certainly true that we suffer from a flood of reading matter which serves no more purpose than a packet of the cheapest cigarettes or a cocktail.

      We have not troubled to acquire a critical sense. We accept what we see on the bookstalls and buy books almost entirely from the attractiveness of their wrappers. But there ought to be a mean between a ferocious disdain of all modern writing and a surfeiting on all that is published. The majority of men and women are very much like myself, I imagine. They read with equal interest a modern novel, say, of Sheila Kaye-Smith, an exposition of the Relativity Theory like Eddington's Space, Time and Gravitation, E. V. Lucas's essays, Henri Fabre and Trotter, and at the same time keep harking back to reread Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy, Shelley and other favourites among the classics.

      Even so, they are apt to miss much that is readable … and from my correspondence I gather that I have many times been lucky enough to introduce an author to a new reader, as a result of which an undying friendship between the two has been caused.

      Merely to turn over the following pages will not give the critic

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