Excerpt from Masters in Literature

This volume has been prepared principally for those who are taking up a systematic study of English Literature for the first time. The aim has been to show in simple, brief, and, it is hoped, interesting manner the successive developments in our literature's history, and to give our great writers their proper historical setting.

In a volume such as this it is obviously impossible, even if it were desirable, to include all the authors of eminence in each of the various periods. Those writers, however, of whom biographical and critical notices are given will be found sufficiently representative of the literary tendency of their time, and the extracts of prose and verse so freely supplied throughout are included as fairly illustrative of each author's genius and style of writing.

An endeavour has been made to secure a sense of unity or completeness in each extract selected, and the shorter poems, letters, and essays are in themselves complete.

The general aim of the work has been to stimulate in the minds of young readers a more intelligent literary interest, and to awaken a more sympathetic understanding of the individual thought and literary expression of our great writers.

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