BOOK SUMMARY OF AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
A history of English literature is a chronological account of the books which
have been written in the English language and their authors. Since literature as
a whole grows and changes from generation to generation, in tracing this growth,
history must show the place which each writer occupies in it, and also his
relation with those who went before and those who came after him.
Every great writer brings some absolutely new thing into what he writes, and his
work bears its own special hallmark. A writer of exceptionally powerful
personality is certain to stamp