Part 1 (1/2)

A Brief Handbook of English Authors.

by Oscar Fay Adams.

PREFACE.

This brief handbook is intended simply for every-day use, when reference to larger works of the kind may not be convenient.

Experience has proved that the small book which can be readily taken up is consulted far more frequently than the ponderous volume that requires great muscular exertion to lift.

In the world of letters as in the world of society conventionality plays no unimportant part, as every student of literature knows. That there is such a thing as ”conventional immortality” every biographical dictionary yields abundant evidence. Even so small a work as this must necessarily contain many names that have achieved this conventional immortality through the accident of circ.u.mstance. Some literary fames are among the legacies left by preceding centuries to the present one to account for and explain. And when all is said, ”the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy and dealeth with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.”

OSCAR FAY ADAMS.

ERIE, PA., _October 28, 1883_.

HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH AUTHORS.

=Abbott, Edwin A.= 183 Shakespearean scholar. Author of a Shakespearean Grammar, a Handbook of Elizabethan English, etc. _Pub.

Mac. Rob._

=A'Becket, Gilbert Abbot.= 1811-1856. Humorist. Author Comic Hist. of England, Comic Hist. of Rome, Comic Blackstone, etc. _Pub. Apl. Lip._

=Adams, Mrs. Sarah [Flower].= 1805-1848. Known chiefly by her hymn, ”Nearer, my G.o.d, to Thee.”

=Adams, Wm.= 1814-1848. Religious writer. Author of Sacred Allegories, etc. _See Edition of 1869, with Life._ _Pub. Lip._

=Addison, Joseph.= 1672-1719. Essayist and poet. His tragedy of Cato is now little read, but his Hymns still continue deservedly popular.

As a prose writer A. has exercised an influence upon the manners, morals, and general culture of his time not easily overestimated. His style is graceful, gentle, and persuasive. With Steele he created the Periodical Essay, and was the chief contributor to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. _See Thackeray's Eng. Humorists_, _Aikin's Memorials of Addison._ _Pub. Har. Lip._

=Aguilar [a-ge-lar'], Grace.= 1816-1847. Novelist. Home Influence, Woman's Friends.h.i.+p, and Days of Bruce are her chief works. _Pub. Apl.

Har._

=Aikin [[=a]'kin], John.= 1747-1822. Biographer and miscellaneous writer. One of the authors of Evenings at Home. _Pub. Har._

=Aikin, Lucy.= 1781-1864. Dau. to J. A. Historian and poet. Author Memoirs of the Courts of Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., Memorials of Addison, etc.

=Ainsworth, Robert.= 1660-1743. Cla.s.sical lexicographer.

=Ainsworth, Wm. Francis.= 180 Geologist and traveller. Author Travels in Asia Minor, Researches in a.s.syria, Babylonia, and Chaldea, etc.

=Ainsworth, Wm. Harrison.= 1805-1882. Cousin to W. F. A. Novelist. His historical novels are numerous, but Jack Sheppard is his most famous work, and has been 8 times dramatized. His popularity has been very great, many of his works having been translated into most European languages, yet their literary merit is not high, and the influence of Jack Sheppard, in particular, is pernicious. _Pub. Har. Rou. Pet._

=Airy, George Biddell.= 180 Astronomer. Author Essays on the Invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar, and numerous scientific papers of value.

=Akenside, Mark.= 1721-1770. Poet and physician. Author of a philosophical poem in blank verse on The Pleasures of the Imagination.

_Pub. Hou._

=Alcuin [[)a]l'-kwin].= c. 735-804. Abp. York. Writer of Latin commentaries, dogmatic treatises, and numerous Latin poems.