HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
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By GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
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MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
A HISTORY
OF
ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE
BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1920
COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1887. Second Edition 1890.
Reprinted 1893, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1901, 1903, 1907, 1910, 1913, 1918,1920.
PREFACE TO NINTH EDITION
As was explained in the Note to the Preface of the previous editions andimpressions of this book, after the first, hardly one of them appearedwithout careful revision, and the insertion of a more or less considerablenumber of additions and corrections. I found, indeed, few errors of a kindthat need have seemed serious except to Momus or Zoilus. But in theenormous number of statements of fact which literary history of the moreexact kind requires, minor blunders, be they more or fewer, are sure tocreep in. No writer, again, who endeavours constantly to keep up and extendhis knowledge of such a subject as Elizabethan literature, can fail to havesomething new to say from time to time. And though no one who is competentoriginally for his task ought to experience any violent changes of view,any one's views may undergo modification. In particular, he may find thatreaders have misunderstood him, and that alterations of expression aredesirable. For all these reasons and others I have not spared trouble inthe various revisions referred to; I think the book has been kept by them[Pg vi]fairly abreast of its author's kno