Shorter Notices
The Literature of England. A.D. 500 to 1942. By William J. Entwistle and Eric Gillett. (Longmans. 7s. 6c1.1 To attempt to cover the whole field of English literature in 282 pages is to court disaster, and disaster has, in this case, overwhelmed the unfortunate authors of this shockingly bad book. It is totally inadequate in matter and commonplace in style. To put it into the hands of the young would be an educational crime, for it has as much nourishment for the mind. as a collection of dry tasteless packets labelled Quinces, Oranges, Peaches, Apples, &c., would have for the body. Short cuts to literature lead not to its flowery meads but to arid cinder wastes, and even a scholarly and well-written guide like Mr. George Sampson's Concise History of English Literature, a
digest of the big Cambridge University Press history, suffers from a desiccating compression, though it is vastly superior to the book under review, and it contains 5,508 pages.
Previous page
