This volume, published in the year of the author’s death, collects some of Lowell’s most intellectually stimulating pieces. Included are studies of Walter Savage Landor, Milton’s “Areopagitica, ” Shakespeare’s “Richard III, ” modern languages, and the world’s progress, among others. The editor also includes lectures given by Lowell in 1887 on the Old English Dramatists—“Marlowe, ” Webster, ” “Chapman, ” “Beaumont and Fletcher, ” and “Massinger and Ford.”
Circa l’autore
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was an American poet, critic, and diplomat. A strong opponent of slavery, he wrote steadfastly in support of Lincoln and the Union cause in the pages of the North American Review, which he co-edited with Charles Eliot Norton. Later in life, he served as American ambassador to Spain and then England.