The Rise And Fall of the Man of Letters: Aspects of English Literary Life Since 1800 (Penguin literary criticism) - Softcover

Gross, John

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30 ratings by Goodreads

9780140144130: The Rise And Fall of the Man of Letters: Aspects of English Literary Life Since 1800 (Penguin literary criticism)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140144137 ISBN 13: 9780140144130

Publisher: Penguin, 1991

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In this survey, John Gross gives portraits of major literary figures from Frances Jeffrey, the first editor of the "Edinburgh Review", through Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold and many others to the advent of F.R.Leavis and Raymond Williams. He looks at "the higher journalism", the expansion of the reading public, the byways of British liberalism, the rise of English literature as an academic subject and the impact of T.S. Eliot and modernism. In a new afterword he provides updates on the later careers of Cyril Connolly, Geoffrey Grigson and Leavis and discusses the new style of literary critics who have evolved from the universities. Finally he considers the dominant role of the media and entertainment.

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Review:

A brilliant account of English literary culture, as engaging as it is illuminating.--Lionel Trilling

A very intelligent, interesting, and intensely readable book.--Isaiah Berlin

Strewn with marvelous bits: deft apercus, biographical portraits of great subtlety and force, wit, commonsensical intelligence everywhere. No one who cares about the state of literature can afford to neglect this book.--Joseph Epstein

No praise can be too high...remarkable for its balance and sense of perspective.--Noel Annan "The New York Review Of Books "

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