The work recognizes the conventional arrangement of material by periods, but it goes a step farther. It groups the special ages that are united by common interests into larger wholes that are themselves distinguished by more marked differences one from another. Within each age the works are classified according to types or forms. Within each type the examples are arranged as far as possible in order of time. Each selection is followed by a date. When placed at the left, as is done in all cases before the art of printing was introduced into England, the date indicates the time of composition; when placed at the right, it indicates the time of first publication. The abbreviation c. signifies "century"; ca. stands for circa, "about."

The book is supplied with notes and other helps that should enable the student to obtain an adequate notion of English literary history without the aid of a manual. Similarly the mythological references are given fully enough to serve the general purposes of interpretation without a supplementary text on the subject. Each general period is preceded by an introduction giving the main contemporary currents of society and literature. Biographical sketches of the various authors represented, and brief critical notes indicating the historical and æsthetic value of their works, are included. Because of their frequency, the merely glossarial notes in the Old and Middle periods are placed at the foot of the pages. Cross-references make possible the comparison of important themes and ideas as treated by various authors or in various periods. Prefixed to the readings is a Chronological Outline, which is intended to assist the student in placing the chief authors and works in relation to English political history and to some of the great landmarks of continental and American history and literature. A literary map of England, especially prepared for the volume, has been included in the hope that its use may encourage a better acquaintance with the geographical conditions which have entered so largely into the making of our literature.

The compilers are indebted to numerous predecessors for assistance in establishing or elucidating the texts employed. The following list, arranged chronologically, gives the special editions or texts used in the instances of all the major writers:

Malory, Temple Classics; Chaucer, Oxford; Spenser, Cambridge; Shakespeare, Oxford; Bacon, Works, 10 vols., London, 1824; Milton, Cambridge (Poetry) and Bohn's Standard Library (Prose); Dryden, Cambridge; Pope, Cambridge; Johnson, Works, new Edition, 6 vols., Philadelphia, 1825; Burns, Cambridge; Wordsworth, Oxford; Coleridge, Oxford; Byron, Oxford; Shelley, Oxford; Keats, Oxford; Carlyle, Essays, 7 vols., Chapman & Hall, London; Tennyson, Globe; Browning, Oxford ("Epilogue to Asolando," Globe); Arnold, Oxford (Poetry), and Essays, Macmillan (Prose); Ruskin, Works, 30 vols., Crowell.

In all other cases the best available texts have been followed. In every instance the attempt has been to produce not merely a readable text but one of commendable accuracy.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge obligations for many words of interest and encouragement and for a generous spirit of helpfulness: to Professor W. H. Vann of Baylor College; to Dr. Grace Landrum and Messrs. Dunning, Jones, and Hart

of the department of English in the University of Richmond; to Dr. H. R. McIlwaine and staff of the Virginia State Library; and to Mr. Edwin E. Willoughby of the Newberry Library, Chicago.

Publishers and Authors who have kindly extended copyright privileges, elsewhere acknowledged specifically, are as follows:

Ginn & Company; Oxford University Press; Open Court Publishing Company; Irish Texts Society; David Nutt; Jessie L. Weston; J. M. Dent & Sons; Chatto & Windus; The Macmillan Company; E. P. Dutton & Company; Charles Scribner's Sons; Harper and Brothers; The Modern Library, Inc.; Dodd, Mead & Company; John Murray; Doubleday, Page & Company; Frederick A. Stokes Company; Brentano's; Sir William Watson; Rudyard Kipling; Sir Edmund Gosse; G. K. Chesterton; H. G. Wells; John Galsworthy.

T. P. C.

C. T. G.