English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 2: From Elizabeth to Anne

Mitchell, Donald Grant, 1822-1908Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
395K words
Chapters
40

Tags

English Originals World HistoryForeign Literature Historical ReappraisalGroup BiographySlow ReadingIntellectual CommentaryEclectic ReadingSocial Observation

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971, and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 2: From Elizabeth to Anne by Mitchell. Author: Mitchell, Donald Grant, 1822–1908. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Feb 9, 2017

Editor's review

This is the second volume of Mitchell's essay series on English literature and culture, spanning from the Elizabethan era to the reign of Queen Anne, available through Project Gutenberg. In an essayistic style, the author moves among the land and its scenery, literary figures, and the reigns of monarchs, examining literary texts within concrete historical settings and producing a form that sits between literary criticism and historical-cultural musing. Its strengths are breadth of vision and an unhurried tone: it offers both judgments on writers and works and depictions of period manners and local scenery, reading like a tour with a learned guide. For Chinese readers, it is better suited as supplementary material for studying English literary history, helping connect the literary currents from the late Renaissance to the early eighteenth century with political change. There is no need to read every chapter; skip to authors or reigns of interest and pair the reading with selections from the original works for best results.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents first and choose chapters by author or reign; there is no need to proceed from page one.
  2. Pair each chapter with selections from a representative writer's work, comparing the commentary with the original text.
  3. Keep a timeline as you read, mapping the Elizabethan, James I, and Anne periods onto literary movements.
  4. For unfamiliar writers, look up basic information before reading the commentary to avoid being led astray by the essayistic narration.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40

FAQ

Can I read volume 2 without having read volume 1? Yes. Volume 2 covers the Elizabethan to Anne era, and its chapters mostly center on specific writers and periods, so they stand relatively independently. Reading volume 1 as well will give a fuller sense of the author's overall arc, but it is not necessary for reading individual chapters.
Is this a strict academic literary history? It is not a strict academic work but essayistic literary and cultural criticism. It offers period atmosphere and impressions of writers, with views shaped by the author's personal tastes. It is suitable as background reading but not as a substitute for a systematic literary history textbook.
How difficult is the original English for Chinese readers? The text consists of English essays from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, with long sentences and many English writers, personal names, and place names. Chinese readers should use annotations and reference works and read closely chapter by chapter rather than insisting on finishing the whole book.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Mitchell, Donald Grant, 1822-1908 Author

Donald Grant Mitchell (1822–1908) was an American man of letters known for his essays and literary history. Public information on the details of his life is limited, but the five works held in this collection sketch the focus of his writing. On the one hand, he wrote the multi-volume English Lands, Letters and Kings, which traces English letters and monarchy from the Celtic and Tudor periods through to the Victorian era, with separate volumes covering the age from Elizabeth to Anne and the reigns of Queen Anne and the Georges, showing a sustained interest in English history and its literary world. On the other, Dream Life: A Fable of the Seasons is an essayistic meditation on the seasons and human life, gentle and lyrical in tone. His works combine learning with readability and will appeal to readers interested in English and American literature and historical essays.