The Pageant of English Prose: Being Five Hundred Passages by Three Hundred and Twenty-Five Authors
Price: $150.00
Hard Cover. London: Oxford University Press, 1926. Near Fine.
Later printing [1912]. Finely bound in a prize binding of red calf, boards double ruled in gilt, Cranbrook School emblem to front board in gilt, five raised bands to spine, ruled and lettered in gilt, turn-ins decorated in blind, marbled edges, prize label affixed to front pastedown, and red marbled endpapers. Near fine, with bottom board corners lightly bumped, light spotting to prize label, front and rear endpaper versos, and flyleaves, and a minor smudge to fore edge of text block. Overall, an extremely clean and attractively bound copy. The Pageant of English Prose, a companion volume to The Pageant of English Poetry, includes prose passages by some of the greatest and most influential writers in history, including Sir Thomas Malory, Shakespeare, John Donne, Daniel Defoe, Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Keats, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, and many more. Describing the great variety of passages in the book, editor R. M. Leonard writes, "Here will be found authors clad in ermine and robes of state; in the divine's sober garments, decked occasionally with the riband of a jest; in drab of formal cut; in the camel's hair of a prophet; in slashed doublet and other fantastic attire, furnished, perhaps, with the feathers and rapiers of the wits, or with cap and bells…" Specifically, the prose in this anthology covers "history, philosophy, theology, natural and political science, fiction, essays, table talk, translations, dedications, diaries, letters, and parliamentary, pulpit, and forensic oratory." Item #RML001
