| LIFE OF DRYDEN. Library Edition. | | Crown 8vo, 3s. net; Pocket Edition, | | Fcap. 8vo, 2s. net. | | [_English Men of Letters._ | | | | A FIRST BOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. | | Globe 8vo. Sewed, 2s. Stiff Boards, | | 2s. 3d. | | | | NOTES ON A CELLAR-BOOK. Small 4to. | | 7s. 6d. net. | | | | MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. | | | +---------------------------------------------+ A HISTORY OF ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1920 COPYRIGHT _First Edition_ 1887. _Second Edition_ 1890. _Reprinted_ 1893, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1901, 1903, 1907, 1910, 1913, 1918, 1920. PREFACE TO NINTH EDITION As was explained in the Note to the Preface of the previous editions and impressions of this book, after the first, hardly one of them appeared without careful revision, and the insertion of a more or less considerable number of additions and corrections. I found, indeed, few errors of a kind that need have seemed serious except to Momus or Zoilus. But in the enormous number of statements of fact which literary history of the more exact kind requires, minor blunders, be they more or fewer, are sure to creep in. No writer, again, who endeavours constantly to keep up and extend his knowledge of such a subject as Elizabethan literature, can fail to have something new to say from time to time. And though no one who is competent originally for his task ought to experience any violent changes of view, any one's views may undergo modification. In particular, he may find that readers have misunderstood him, and that alterations of expression are desirable. For all these reasons and others I have not spared trouble in the various revisions referred to; I think the book has been kept by them fairly abreast of its author's knowledge, and I hope it is not too far behind that of others.