This is an attempt to write a history of English literature admittedly with an innovative approach. The traditional as well as the more modern views in the West on literary movements, schools, traditions and influences in the field of English literature and on individual English authors and their major and minor works are here given due respect and serious consideration, but with the reservation sometimes to differ and occasionally to introduce new and totally contrary judgments from the viewpoint of historical materialism i.e., the writers and their writings are to be given their proper places in each case in accordance with the roles, healthful or otherwise, that they play in the progress of history, social and literary. Of course,whether or how far have I succeeded in these pages in living up to the theory advanced above awaits judgment from my readers.
Selected Readings in English Literature is to serve as a textbook for Readings in English Literature,a companion-course to History of English Literature.