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A MANUAL

OF

ENGLISH PROSE LITERATURE

AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITION.

Having received from MESSRS. GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, of Boston, New York, and Chicago, payment for the copyright in America of my "Manual

of English Prose Literature," I assign the publishing rights in that country to them.

W. MINTO.

UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN,

May 1887.

OF

ENGLISH PROSE LITERATURE

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL

DESIGNED MAINLY TO SHOW

CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE

BY

WILLIAM MINTO, M.A.

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND LITERATURE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

Chas E. Burbank,

AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITION

BOSTON, U.S.A.:

PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY.

1892.

795.92.870

GIFT OF THE

AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY

May 4, 1934

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

THE main design of this book is to assist in directing students of English composition to the merits and the defects of our principal writers of prose. It is not, however, merely a collection of received critical opinions. It may be of some value to the inquirer after general information, as well as to readers more advanced than those kept specially in view.

It

The characteristics of the work are briefly these. deals with prose alone, assigning books of fiction to the department of poetry; it endeavours to criticise upon a methodical plan, fully explained in an Introduction; it selects certain leading authors for full criticism and exemplification; and it gives unusual prominence to three select authors of recent date.

Little need be said to justify taking up Prose by itself. In criticising Poetry we are met by very different considerations from those that occur in the other kinds of composition. What is more, many people not particularly interested in Poetry are anxious for practical purposes to have a good knowledge of Prose style; and when Prose and Poetry are discussed in the same volume, Prose is generally sacrificed to Poetry.

In excluding Romance or Fiction from a Manual of

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