Title: English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World - A Textbook for Schools

Author: William J. Long

Publisher: Ginn and Company, 1919

Vintage book titled "English Literature" is a very well written school book in very good condition. Also the book is very generously illustrated in black and white with a full color frontispiece with an exquisite medieval look.

From the Preface - "This book, which presents the whole splendid history of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the close of the Victorian Era, has three specific aims. The first is to create or encourage in every student the desire to read the best books, and to know literature itself rather than what has been written about literature...The third aim is to show, by a study of each successive period, how our literature has steadily developed from its first simple songs and stories to its present complexity in prose and poetry."

The contents of this book are organized under the following categories: The Meaning of Literature, The Anglo-Saxon or Old-English Period, The Anglo-Norman Period, The Age of Chaucer, The Revival of Learning, The Age of Elizabeth, The Puritan Age, Period of the Restoration, Eighteenth-Century Literature, The Age of Romanticism, The Victorian Age, An Essay of Recent Literature, General Bibliography, Index.

This hardcover vintage book is structurally sound, the cover is secure, the pages intact and in good condition, clean and unmarked. The book was owned by an English professor, her name is written inside the front cover on the front fly-leaf. The book has some edge and corner wear, the book also has some wear at the top and bottom of the spine. Inside the front cover the pages are darkened with age, uneven in tone, same type of discoloration inside the back cover.