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LITERARY READER

A Manual of English Literature

BEING TYPICAL SELECTIONS FROM SOME OF THE BEST
BRITISH AND AMERICAN AUTHORS FROM SHAKE-
SPEARE TO THE PRESENT TIME, CHRONO.

LOGICALLY ARRANGED, WITH BIOGRAPH-

ICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES, AND

NUMEROUS NOTES, ETC.

BY GEORGE R. CATHCART

WITH PORTRAITS

NEW YORK: CINCINNATI: CHICAGO

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

[1907

HARYAR COLLEGE LIBRARY

SHELDON FUND
JULY 10, 1940

Copyright, 1873, by
IVISON, BLAKEMAN, TAYLOR, & Co.

Copyright, 1892, by

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY.

Copyright, 1901, by
JENNIE R. CATHCART.

CATHCART LIT. R.

W. P. 14

PREFACE

It is now more than seventeen years

T is now more than seventeen years since the first

edition of the "LITERARY READER" was presented to the public. At that time the Compiler declared that he had not designed to make the work a compendium of English literature, but rather to provide a means of acquiring a fair knowledge of that literature for those who might not be able to pursue a special course of study in it. It was recognized that in the catalogue of school studies, literature then held but a humble place; its value to the mass of scholars had been undervalued, it had long been esteemed a branch of knowledge really useful only to the few who aspire to a liberal education. Public sentiment had, fortunately, undergone a change touching this matter within a few years, and the book was prepared in the avowed hope of furthering that change, and of confirming literature in its true place among school studies.

It is no small satisfaction to be able to record that the success of the "Literary Reader" in its original edition was such as to justify this hope; and a new edition is now put forth, embodying such changes and improvements as the higher and severer demands of the time seem to make necessary. This work, not less than the former edition of the "Literary Reader," is intended

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