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The Classic French study & appreciation of English Literature

In Four Matching Volumes

HISTORY of ENGLISH LITERATURE

by H.A.Taine, D.C.L.

translated from the French by H VAN LAUN

fine-paper edition with thirty-two portraits

IN FOUR VOLUMES 

pub.  Chatto & Windus, London, 1906 , (originally published in 1863) four matching small hardcover 8vos without dj, 433; 447; 462 & 476pp.,  with illustrated plates (portraits), gilt to top page edges. Blindstamp title and motif to front covers. Frontispiece portraits are tissue-protected. Index.

Condition:  Purple cloth-bound hardcovers with gilt titles to spine, STRAIGHT, CLEAN & TIGHT in GOOD CONDITION with no inscriptions, slight rubbing and edgewear. The spine of volume 1 showns approx 3cm insect damage to the title on the spine, along with 2 other chips, as can be seen in the scan. The books are ROBUST and intact.

  • Taine is best known now for his attempt at a scientific account of literature, based on the categories of race, milieu, and moment.Taine used these words in French (race, milieu et moment); the terms have become widespread in literary criticism in English, but are used in this context in senses closer to the French meanings of the words than the English meanings, which are, roughly, "nation", "environment" or "situation", and "time".
  • Taine's influence on French intellectual culture and literature was enormous. He had a special relationship, in particular, with Émile Zola

  • Taine shared a correspondence with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who later referred to him in Beyond Good and Evil as "the greatest living historian".

  • He was also the subject of Stefan Zweig's doctoral thesis, "The Philosophy of Hippolyte Taine."

  • A study from the Saxons until the time of Tennyson.

  • A delightful set of this classic work.