MORLEYS MESSRS. GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS believe that there is in England a very large public demand for good books. They believe it to be large enough to justify the production of a uniform series of very cheap volumes, advancing, in course of time, towards the realization of a UNIVERSAL LIBRARY that shall contain all the best and most significant books in the world, of all times outside the time of Copyright, and of all countries, so far as such books can be found written in or rendered into English. The Publishers, wish to produce the best books at the cheapest rate-that is to say, in bound and well-printed volumes of 320 pages for a Shilling. The Editor to whom they have looked for aid in working out their purpose shares their faith in the demand for easiest access to all forms of the world's thought, and all forms of opinion that have helped to shape the lives of men. He agrees therefore to be responsible for the selection of books published in this way, and he will issue each of them with a short Introduction, giving some account of its writer and some indication of its place in literature. In the sequence of these volumes, as first published, there will be only the order in disorder that aims at variety. As they multiply upon the shelves, they will admit of any classification that most pleases their possessor. There will be in them the best Plays and Poems, the best works of Fiction, the best books of Travel, Histories, Biographies-all that is most characteristic in the speculations of philosophy and of political economy, the books of most mark in the world that seek to define or purify man's sense of his relation towards God. They may be arranged in sequence of time, from Confucius to Coleridge, or grouped into nations, with Homer to head the Greeks, Dante the Italians, Shakespeare the English, and so forth. The series of books is one that should outlive its present Editor, if English readers are far as lies within the compass of which the air itself is in its movement gross and palpable. As far, therefore, as sense and rhythm allow, old spelling will, throughout this Library, be modernised. Also, it is the Editor's intention to respect that change in the convention of society which excludes now from our common acquaintance certain plainnesses of thought and speech once honestly meant and honestly allowed. By a little care in this respect, much of the best literature can, with slight injury to its best features, be rescued from neglect. The use and beauty of old monuments are, surely, separable from their dust and dirt. No writer has ever felt of his own book that it attained his highest aim, but that has not been reason for regretting that it had an aim. The UNIVERSAL LIBRARY will fall short of its mark, but it will not be the worse for having such a purpose as is here described. Considering, also, what a staff of writers it will have, and that in each book the Editor restricts his own talk to four pages, its volumes cannot easily be dull. HENRY MORLEY. ORDER OF PUBLICATION. 1. SHERIDAN'S PLAYS. 2. PLAYS FROM MOLIÈRE. By DRYDEN, WYCHERLEY, FIELDING, and Others. 3. GOETHE'S FAUST. 4. CHRONICLE OF THE CID. May, 1883. June, 1883. July, 1883. August, 1883. September, 1883. 5. RABELAIS GARGANTUA, AND THE HEROIC DEEDS OF PANTAGRUEL. 6. THE PRINCE, BY MACHIAVELLI. 7. BACON'S ESSAYS. October, 1883. 8. DE FOE'S JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE. December, 1883. 9. LOCKE ON TOLERATION AND ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT; WITH SIR ROBERT FILMER'S "PATRIARCHA." January, 1884. 10. BUTLER'S ANALOGY OF RELIGION. 11. DRYDEN'S VIRGIL. February 1884. March, 1884. April, 1884. 12. SIR WALTER SCOTT'S DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. |