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Harvard Classics, Vol. 39
No part of a book is so intimate as the Preface.
Introduction

Harvard Classics, Vol. 39

Prefaces and Prologues

To Famous Books

Each of the prefaces and prologues in this volume is a complete work of literature unto itself, offering a unique insight to the thoughts of its author.

Bibliographic Record

Contents

NEW YORK: P.F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY, 1909–14
NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2001

Introductory Note

William Caxton
The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy

Title and Prologue to Book I
Epilogue to Book II
Epilogue to Book III
Epilogue to Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers
Prologue to Golden Legend
Prologue to Caton (1483)
Epilogue to Aesop (1483)
Proem to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Prologue to Malory’s King Arthur (1485)
John Calvin
Dedication of the Institutes of the Christian Religion

General Syllabus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Dedication of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies to Pope Paul III
John Knox
Preface to The History of the Reformation In Scotland
Edmund Spenser
Prefatory Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh On The Faerie Queene
Sir Walter Raleigh
Preface to the History of the World

Paras. 1–25
Paras. 26–50
Paras. 51–74

Francis Bacon
Proœmium of the Instauratio Magna
Epistle Dedicatory to the Instauratio Magna
Preface to the Instauratio Magna
The Plan of the Instauratio Magna
Preface to the Novum Organum
Henrie Condell and Iohn Heminge
Preface to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays
Sir Isaac Newton
Preface to the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
John Dryden
Preface to Fables, Ancient and Modern
Henry Fielding
Preface to Joseph Andrews
Samuel Johnson
Preface to the English Dictionary

Paras. 1–50
Paras. 51–94
Letter to the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield
Preface to Shakespeare

Paras. 1–40
Paras. 41–80
Paras. 81–120
Paras. 121–161
J. W. von Goethe
Introduction to the Propyläen

William Wordsworth
Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
Appendix to Lyrical Ballads
Preface to Poems
Essay Supplementary to Preface

Victor Hugo
Preface to Cromwell

Paras. 1–30
Paras. 31–60
Paras. 61–90
Paras. 91–120
Paras. 121–143
Walt Whitman
Preface to Leaves of Grass
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine
Introduction to the History of English Literature

I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII