Free eBooks - Literary Criticism - Shakespeare
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Kipling, Rudyard
Kipling, Rudyard
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English author and poet. Born in Bombay, British India (now Mumbai), he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book [1894] (a collection of stories which includes Rikki-Tikki-Tavi), Kim [1901] (a tale of adventure), many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King [1888]; and his poems, including Mandalay [1890], Gunga Din [1890], and If— [1910]. He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift.
Kipling was one of ...
Kipling was one of ...
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Kipling’s brilliant reconstruction of the genesis of the ‘Tempest’ may remind us how often that play has excited the creative fancy of its readers. It has given rise to many imitations, adaptations, and sequels. Fletcher copied its storm, its desert island, and its woman who had never seen a man. Suckling borrowed its spirits. Davenant and Dryden added a man who had never ... more...
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WALTER CRANE
1893
See handwritten text Mr Dallas's reproductions of my pen drawings for this work appear to me to be very faithful & successful in preserving the touch & general character of the originals.
I have to certify that I have printed 650 copies of each of these eight subjects designed by Walter Crane, and engraved in Dallastype Facsimile by myself.
Six Hundred Copies are for ... more...
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How the Play came to be Written
I had better explain why, in this little piece d'occasion, written for a performance in aid of the funds of the project for establishing a National Theatre as a memorial to Shakespear, I have identified the Dark Lady with Mistress Mary Fitton. First, let me say that I do not contend that the Dark Lady was Mary Fitton, because when the case in Mary's favor (or against her, if ... more...
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Hazlitt, William Carew
Hazlitt, William Carew
English bibliographer, the grandson of William Hazlitt. Among his many publications may be noted his Hazlitt (Classical Gazetteer) (1851), his invaluable Handbook to the Popular, Poetical and Dramatic Literature of Great Britain, from the Invention of Printing to the Restoration (1867), supplemented in 1876, 1882, 1887 and 1889, a General Index by J. G. Gray appearing in 1893. He published further contributions to the subject in Bibliographical Collections and Notes on Early English Literature made during the years 1893-1903 (1903), and a Manual for the Collector and Amateur of Old English Plays ... (1892). He was the chief editor of the 1871 edition of Warton's ...
INTRODUCTION.
When a small impression of these quaint old books issued from the Chiswick Press, many years ago, under the auspices of the late Mr. S. W. Singer, that gentleman merely designed the copies struck off for presentation to a select circle of literary friends who, like himself, felt a warm interest in every relic of the past which helped to illustrate Shakespeare and ancient English manners. He did ... more...
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"It would be hard to name a better commonplace book for summer lawns. . . . The lover of poetry, the lover of gardening, and the lover of quaint, out-of-the-way knowledge will each find something to please him. . . . It is a delightful example of gardening literature."—Pall Mall Gazette.
"Mr. Ellacombe, with a double enthusiasm for Shakespeare and for his garden, has ... more...
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
The most interesting and important fifteen years in the records of English dramatic literature are undoubtedly those between 1588 and 1603, within which limit all of Shakespeare's poems and the majority of his plays were written; yet no exhaustive English history, intelligently co-ordinating the social, literary, and political life of this period, has ever been written.
Froude, the ... more...
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PREFACE
In telling the story of Shakespeare's life and work within strict limits of space, an attempt has been made to keep closely to essential matters. There is no period of the poet's life, there is no branch of his marvellous work, that has not been the subject of long and learned volumes, no single play that has not been discussed at greater length than serves here to cover the chief incidents of work ... more...
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PREFACE
When I was invited to reprint in book-form the articles which had appeared in the Genealogical Magazine under the titles of "Shakespeare's Family" and the "Warwickshire Ardens," I carefully corrected them, and expanded them where expansion could be made interesting. Thus to the bald entries of Shakespeare's birth and burial I added a short life. Perhaps never before has anyone attempted to write a ... more...
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Johnson, Samuel
Johnson, Samuel
Moralist, essayist, and lexicographer, son of a bookseller at Lichfield, received his early education at his native town, and went in 1728 to Oxford, but had, owing to poverty, to leave without taking a degree. For a short time he was usher in a school at Market Bosworth, but found the position so irksome that he threw it up, and gained a meagre livelihood by working for a publisher in Birmingham. In 1735, being then 26, he married Mrs. Porter, a widow of over 40, who brought him ?800, and to whom he was sincerely attached. He started an academy at Ediol, near Lichfield, which, however, had no success, only three boys, one of whom was David Garrick, attending it. ...
Dr. Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare is one of the most famous critical essays of the eighteenth century, and yet too many students have forgotten that it is, precisely, a preface to the plays of Shakespeare, edited by Dr. Johnson himself. That is to say, the edition itself has been obscured or overshadowed by its preface, and the sustained effort of that essay has virtually monopolized scholarly ... more...
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Mr. Crosby's article on Shakespeare's attitude toward the working classes suggested to me the idea of also expressing my own long-established opinion about the works of Shakespeare, in direct opposition, as it is, to that established in all the whole European world. Calling to mind all the struggle of doubt and self-deceit,—efforts to attune myself to Shakespeare—which I went through owing to my ... more...
