George Saintsbury

Published in 1912, this scholarly exploration of meter and rhythm begins with ancient Greece and Rome; moving through Old and Middle English; Chaucer; the ornate and plain styles; Edmund Burke; the great novelists of the nineteenth century such as Austen, Dickens, and Thackeray; the lyrical prose of John Ruskin; and more. It is one of the very few full-length studies of prose rhythm.

Saintsbury examines the life of John Dryden (1631—1700), England's first Poet Laureate and one of the most important writers of the late seventeenth century. He is best known for his poems, plays, literary essays and translations, including such satirical works as MacFlecknoe. Saintsbury focuses on his literary work, fall from grace, and transformation in the period known as the "Age of Dryden."

First published in 1895, Collected Impressions is Saintsbury's lively and individual evaluation of the great Victorian writers from Thackeray through Ruskin. His study of Matthew Arnold is for many the definitive account of the figure who loomed largest in the minds of late Victorian literarati. Saintsbury approached his survey with the premise that the "substance" of literature must "always be life," without undue concern with beliefs, convictions...

I think I could be a good woman, if I had five thousand a year, observes beautiful and clever Becky Sharp, one of the wickedest and most appealing women in all of literature. Becky is just one of the many fascinating figures that populate William Makepeace Thackeray 's wonderfully satirical panorama of upper-middle-class life and manners in London at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Scorned for her lack of money and breeding, Becky must use...

"'Pride and Prejudice' has delighted generations of readers with its unforgettable cast of characters, carefully choreographed plot, and a hugely entertaining view of the world and its absurdities. With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters are turned inside out and upside down. Pride encounters prejudice, upward-mobility confronts social disdain, and quick-wittedness challenges...