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(MAINLY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL)

FROM-

NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE

WITH NOTES

BY

JOHN W. CUNLIFFE, D. LIT.

(UNIVERSITY OF London)

Lecturer in English Language and Literature at McGill University.

TORONTO

THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED

HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY

865*

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand nine hundred and four, by THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED, Toronto, Ontario, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

PREFACE.

This little book does not profess to give a representative selection from the great prose writers of the nineteenth century it has a much humbler aim in view. It has been found that even the best handbooks of literature, when studied in school or college, give unsatisfactory results; if the better plan is adopted of attempting to gain a first-hand knowledge of one or two authors, the ground covered by young students is necessarily small. The present volume endeavours to combine the advantages of both methods by allowing some of the great writers of the nineteenth century to tell their own story or set forth their own point of view. The age of those for whom the book is intended has greatly influenced the choice of extracts; what commends itself to the grown-up reader does not always appeal to less mature minds. The greatest success a book of this kind can achieve is to inspire young readers with a desire to know more of the authors studied; it is a deplorable result when a book about literature leaves a boy or girl with a distaste for reading.

It is hoped that these selections may also be of help to teachers in giving models and subjects for simple exercises in English Composition. The difficulty experienced by many young people is that they seem to themselves to have nothing to say. They should be encouraged to master the contents of the introductory sketches, text, and notes, and to combine all three in an account, written in their own words, of some particular incident, character, or argument.

J. W. C.

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