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Augustine Birrell was a prolific and elegant writer who produced an extensive collection of essays, primarily on English literature. Here, he has collected twenty-four of his essays about distinguished literary figures such as Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Charles Lamb, Thomas Paine, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and James Anthony Froude, among others.

Seeking to keep the flame of literature burning during the dark days of the Great War, Sir Edward Cook collected his reflections on reading and writing in 1918. Subjects of his essays include the arts of biography and indexing, the style of John Ruskin, literary and modern journalism, words and their relation to war, and more.

Published in 1881, this volume of the English Men of Letters series was written by a man who had been both friend and editor to Thomas De Quincey.  As such, it is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the life of one of Victorian England's most unusual writers, the author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821).

This 1897 volume is a survey of British literature from 1830 to 1870.  Of this period, Walker writes:  “Next to the eighteenth century, the age of Tennyson has been the most critical in our literature.”  Includes studies of the works of Carlyle, Tennyson, Dickens, Thackeray, the Bröntes, Macaulay, and Arnold among others.

This 1890 collection includes essays on such writers as William Hazlitt, Thomas Moore, Leigh Hunt, and Thomas De Quincy. Saintsbury clearly outlines the general characteristics of each author, always achieving an unbiased tone, as he believed opinions are not the same as judgment—and judging is the critic’s task.

Written to celebrate Queen Victoria’s reign, this 1897 study covers “sixty years of books and bookmen.” Shorter focuses in turn on the poets, novelists, historians, and critics of the time—covering such figures as William Wordsworth, Alfred Tennyson, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Lord Macaulay, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and John Stuart Mill, among many others.

In this 1905 short work of criticism, one great satirical mind pays tribute to another. In addition to lively synopses and appreciations of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Arms and the Man, The Devil’s Disciple, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, and others, Mencken offers an epilogue on Shaw and Shakespeare.

This 1916 roughly chronological appraisal begins with the Psalms of David and ends with The Oxford Book of English Verse. Powys lists and comments on canonical favorites by Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Austen, as well as works by lesser-known authors such as Walter Pater, Gilbert Cannan, Vincent O’Sullivan, and Oliver Onions.

Published in 1920, these buoyant essays, which originally appeared in the New Statesman, display the author's critical analyses of men of letters and literature.  Contents includes "Was Cromwell an Alligator?," "Mr. Barclay Sees it Through," "The Muse in Liquor," and "Wordsworth’s Personal Dullness."     

The first essay in this collection begins by declaring that seriousness is not a virtue, setting the tone for the light and playful pieces that follow. Drawn from G. K. Chesterton’s weekly columns in The Illustrated London News and the New Witness, the essays here cover a range of topics, not necessarily...

In this rich collection of biographical essays, Chesterton illuminates twelve of the most influential figures in European history. With characteristic insight and critical thought, Chesterton creates enduring portraits of such figures as Charlotte Brontë, Lord Byron, Thomas Carlyle, Charles II, St....

Major-General Charles “Chinese” Gordon (1833-1885) was a heroic British soldier and eccentric individual. Starting with a discussion of his ancestry and birth, this volume follows the career of the General through the Crimea, China, the Sudan, India, Palestine, and more—giving readers a clear picture of his duties, as well as a hint of his personality.

Ornithologist and naturalist W. H. Hudson’s Adventures Among Birds is an engaging account of the remarkable behavior he’s observed among birds. Here is a lonely swan who befriends a trout; a gander who herds his fellow geese into a fox-proof enclosure every evening; and a flock of lapwings who playfully splash newcomers to their group.

This collection of essays charmingly captures Hudson’s deep love of nature. Classics of nature writing, essays such as “Life in a Pine Wood,” “The Beauty of the Fox,” “The Discontented Squirrel,” “The Toad as Traveller,” and others are invaluable texts for any nature lover.