Studies in Literature and History

About the book

This posthumous collection gathers Alfred C. Lyall's essays on fiction, poetry, correspondence, history, and religion. Discussions of Thackeray, Byron, heroic poetry, and the English utilitarians sit beside reflections on frontiers and the reading of history. The range is held together by an interest in how forms of thought develop within social circumstances. Lyall's experience and imperial assumptions also shape his perspective, especially where he compares societies or religions, so readers should separate analytical insight from inherited hierarchy. The preface explains the selection and its relation to his earlier work. These are independent studies rather than chapters of one continuous argument, allowing a reader to begin with a familiar author and then follow the critic's broader habits of explanation.

• Literature and history
• Critical interpretation
• Society and belief

Why read it

For a varied essay collection that connects literary form with wider questions of historical explanation.

English essays · posthumous collection, 1915