INTRODUCTION. I. AUTHORS AND SELECTIONS. WHEN the time that can be given to the study of literature is limited, it is often better to study the works of several authors than to give all one's time to the study of one only. This book includes selections from five famous authors. The selections are representative, and the authors are representative too. That is, from these stories and extracts we may form a fair idea of the literary character and position of the men who wrote them. And the men who wrote these pieces are among the greatest writers of our century. Washington Irving was the first American man of letters who made himself a reputation abroad as well as at home; he remains the representative of the earlier literature of our country. Hawthorne is our greatest romancer : he was not understood and appreciated early in his career, but by this time he is universally known and loved by us. Sir Walter Scott is the most famous of English novelists; his Waverley Novels form an epoch in the literary history of the nineteenth century. Dickens, some twenty years after Scott, repeated Scott's success; from his first great book to his last he filled a place in the minds of English readers second to none. Victor Hugo is the one great name in the French literature of our century which overtops every other; no other man can stand for modern French literature as properly as he. If, then, we are to make a beginning in forming a taste for good literature, these men are as good men as we can find. If these extracts send their readers to the works of their authors, they will do a great service. The extracts are characteristic. Nothing need be said of “Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Even those who have never read the stories know the names and know of Irving as their author. "The Alhambra " is not so widely known. But we must remember that, although Irving was an American author and |