Barnes Noble: 2826 books

This 1887 volume traces the history of book dedications, beginning with the use of dedications to express love, then to the mercenary practice of selling dedications to patrons, and concluding with a more neutral, balanced sort of dedication. Wheatley confines his selection to English books, concentrating on Shakespeare, Dryden, and Dr. Johnson.

An engrossing history of Charles I (1600-1649), also known as the White King, and the age he lived in. His reign was punctuated by religious conflicts; he was later tried, convicted, and executed for high treason. The author examines Charles the First’s life, but also the culture of England at the time—including the era’s customs, manners, art, and literature.

This collection of saunters through the literary world includes the following essays: “Travelling Companions,” “The Classics in Daily Life,” “A Ramble in Pliny’s Letters,” “The Art of Editing,” “Poets as Critics,” “A Short Study in Words,” “Single-Poem Poets,” “The Charm...

Master of the heroic couplet, Alexander Pope is widely considered the greatest English verse satirist. This insightful volume examines Pope’s life and work alongside the work of his contemporaries—Matthew Prior, William Somerville, Daniel Defoe, Joseph Addison, and many other poets and prose writers.

This biography of poet Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599), is an invaluable source for students of Spenser. Unparalleled in its information about one of the greatest poets in the English language, Church illuminates the life of a man who is best known for his epic poem The Faerie Queene, an adventure-filled tale that is also an allegory about living a moral, virtuous life.

The period of time between Chaucer and Spenser is the subject of this 1905 survey of English and Scottish literature. It provides a clean, concise account of Chaucer and his disciples, Occleve and Lydgate, the golden age of Scottish poetry, the Spenserian vanguard, poets of the English Renaissance, and the ballads and songs of the era.

This 1909 collection of humorous sketches includes “The Fire,” “Seeing People Off,” “A Club in Ruins,” “A Study in Dejection,” “A Pathetic Imposture,” “The Decline of the Graces,” “Whistler’s Writing,” “A Morris for May-Day,” “The House of Commons Manner,” “The...

This critical study of contemporary literature includes chapters on D. H. Lawrence, Rupert Brooke, Samuel Butler, and Joseph Conrad, among others.  The New York Times praised the volume: “He succeeds admirably in preserving the critical balance between the old and the new literary standards.”

Posthumously published in 1888, Matthew Arnold’s previously collected essays on poetry and poets proved, if ever there was a doubt, Arnold’s immense critical gift. His focused, honest style eludes the follies of bias. Included here are the essays, “The Study of Poetry,” “Milton,” “Thomas Gray,” “John Keats,” “Wordsworth,” “Byron,” and “Shelley,” among others.

Written in the form of intimate letters, this 1915 collection covers a wide range of literary subjects, including Edgar Allan Poe, John Milton, the legend of Faust, Nietzsche, J. M. Barrie, Swinburne, Kipling, John Galsworthy, George Meredith, Anatole France, journalism, satire, mystics and pessimists,  “A Publisher’s Book Trade Dinner,” and “On the Wisdom of Doing Nothing.”

Part of the “Art and Craft of Letters” series, in which each volume takes on a different genre, Comedy by John Palmer, Parody by Christopher Stone, and Satire by Gilbert Cannan are included in this book. Each author takes on his subject in a unique and satisfying way.

An enormously popular poet in his day, Watson turned his hand to writing critical essays as well, long before this 1893 volume was published. Here, Watson’s gifted eye turns to Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Keats, Lowell’s critical writing, and Austin Dobson, among other authors and works.

A fascinating biography of the legendary French poet, novelist, and playwright Victor Hugo (1802–1885), author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1832) and Les Miserables (1862). Hugo went through periods of impoverishment and despair before finding success and wealth. Duclaux calls Hugo “the mirror of his age” in this engrossing volume.

In this 1894 love story, an egotistical woman seeks to rearrange her domestic situation in such a way as to replace a man she merely likes with one she deeply loves.  The result is tragedy.