Age of Pope (1700–1748)

REVIEWS

“The special purpose of Mr. Dennis’s hook is to form one of a series of handbooks edited by Professor Hales, which it is to be hoped, he tells us in his preface, will be of service to students who love literature for its own sake instead of regarding it merely as a branch of knowledge required by examiners. A ‘handbook’ indeed, is scarcely a fair description of so readable and companionable a volume, which aims not only at giving accurate information, but at directing the reader’s steps through a country exhaustless in variety and interest.”—Spectator.

“”The division by personally-titled ‘Ages’ was a favourite plan some years ago in regard to history proper, and it has been adopted as the principle of a new series on the history of English Literature, the general editor whereof is Professor Hales. There have been, and are being, produced so many series of this kind, that it is no doubt necessary at least to put forward some special aim ; and this is not worse than another, if it be not taken too literally. It is exceedingly seldom that an age in literature can be called the age of a single person in any other sense than that that person was the most prominent single figure in it ; and there is just a slight danger, perhaps, that writing under such a title may lead the writers to exaggerate both the influence of the age on the writer and the influence of the writer on the age. In such practised hands, however, as those to which the volumes of Professor Hales’s series seem to have been so far committed, this danger cannot be very great, and in Mr. Dennis’s particular division it is reduced almost to a minimum.”” —Saturday Review.

“The biographical portion of Mr. Dennis’s book is really admirable. The accuracy of the details and the knowledge exhibited by the author of the social and political life of the period show how thoroughly he has mastered his subject.”—Westminster Review.

“This, the first of a new series of literary handbooks, augurs well for its successors. Mr. Dennis writes freely and simply, and with a thorough knowledge of the period with which he deals, and goes straight to the point without revelling in circumambient fancies. The result of this is that in 250 odd pages of good print we have as concise a history of Queen Anne literature as we could wish.”—Cambridge Review.

“An excellent little volume.” —Atheneaum.

“A new series of handbooks of English literature under the general direction of Professor Hales cannot but promise well, and it performs very well indeed in its first volume, ‘The Age of Pope.’”—Manchester Guardian.

“A very attractive first instalment of a series edited by Professor Hales, ‘which it is hoped will be of service to students who love literature for its own sake, instead of regarding it merely as a branch of knowledge required by examiners,’ a hope which well deserves to be fulfilled if the succeeding volumes are equal in merit to the present.”—Times.

“If we may take this as a specimen of the Handbooks of English Literature which Professor Hales has undertaken to edit, it will be safe to predict for the series a notable success. . We can hardly imagine a critical and biographical handbook of the period better executed. “”—Dr. Bayne in the “Literary World.”