A SERIES OF SHORT HISTORIES BY EMINENT WRITERS

EDITED BY

EDMUND GOSSE

Each Volume Large Crown 8vo, price 6s.

"Mr. Gosse's introduction to this new series, the list of his collaborators, his own wide knowledge and delicate taste, all assure us that whatever high hopes he may raise, we need have no fear of their ample fulfilment."—The Saturday Review.

A History of Japanese Literature.

By William George Aston, C.M.G., D. Lit., late Japanese Secretary to H. M. Legation, Tokio.

"Mr. Aston has made a very valuable and acceptable contribution to the series. He approaches his difficult task in a sober but not unsympathetic spirit, and he has unquestionably enabled the European reader for the first time to enjoy a comprehensive survey of the vast and ancient field of Japanese literature, of which we have had hitherto only furtive and partial glimpses. He has clothed the dry bones of his subject with the flesh and blood of living reality, and we can follow with unflagging interest the whole process of evolution down to the most recent developments of the Japanese mind."—The Times.

"Justice has been done for the first time to the neglected, or rather never comprehended, subject of the prose and verse of Japan. This is what Mr. Aston has effected, in a volume of unique erudition, wide research, clear discrimination, and excellent design; while, by such an achievement, he has wrought a memorable service not only to those interested in Japan and Japanese studies, but to the world of letters at large, in the midst of which he now gives to her literature an intelligible, established, and a very honourable place. The literature of Japan will assuredly owe to Mr. Aston its first formal and adequate introduction to the good opinion and respectful attention of the West."—Sir Edwin Arnold in Literature.

A History of Spanish Literature.

By J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Corresponding Member of the Spanish Academy.

"This is an excellent handbook. It is comprehensive, clear, concise; the judgments are judicial, impartial; the style is good, lucid, and interesting. It is work well done by one who has a thorough grip of his subject."—The Academy.

A History of Italian Literature.

By Richard Garnett, C. B., LL. D., Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum.

"Dr. Garnett is lucid in arrangement, agreeable and correct. He has done a real service to both English and Italian literatures."—Literature.

A History of Modern English Literature.

By Edmund Gosse, Hon. M. A. Trinity College, Cambridge.

"We know of no volume better fitted to give a general conception of our literature than this."—The Spectator.

"A really useful account of the whole process of evolution in English letters.... Full of insight and serenity of judgment."—The AthenÆum.

A History of French Literature.

By Edward Dowden, D. C. L., LL. D., Professor of English Literature in the University of Dublin.

"Certainly the best history of French literature in the English language."—The AthenÆum.

"This is a history of literature as histories of literature should be written. The more closely one looks into this book, the more clearly is it seen how much thought, how much mental selection, as well as how much reading, have gone to the making of these picturesque portraits of writers."—The Saturday Review.

A History of Ancient Greek Literature.

By Gilbert Murray, M. A., Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow.

"A sketch to which the much-abused word 'brilliant' may be justly applied."—The Times.

"The book is brilliant and stimulating, while its freshness of treatment and recognition of the latest German research amply justify its existence. Professor Murray has made these old Greek bones live."—The AthenÆum.