From the General Introduction: “The literature of the English language, one of the literatures richest in original beauty, is the most extensive ever known to the world. Literary production in the past and the present, taken together, has attained to a greater mass in English than in any other tongue, ancient or modern. Long though this work be, it does not attempt to cover the whole field. It has confined itself to the English literature of the British Isles, leaving to others both the literature of the United States and the literature of the various British dominions, a vast subject which is growing with prodigious rapidity. Only by forgoing any picture of literary expression overseas has it been possible to trace the history of English literature not too superficially, and to show its development coherently and harmoniously, because with unity of place.”. Hard Covers missing.