Excerpt from The Dialogue in English Literature The general history of the dialogue has been set forth in Hirzel's Der Dialog, ein Literarhistorischer Versuch (Leipsic, 1895), which includes, in addition to a full account of classic dialogues, some brief mention of those in modern literatures. This book has furnished the starting-point for the following discussion, which aims to deal, rather inclusively, with the varieties of dialogue in our literature, as well as to give an account of the English dialogues that are most typical, or of the greatest value artistically. I have grouped these dialogues in certain general classes, after setting aside for separate treatment the mediaeval period and the nineteenth century; for, though the classes do indeed overlap, such a grouping reveals some important tendencies. A few translations that have come to form part of English literature, or have closely affected its development, appear in the course of the discussion, but only a few out of many. The following pages may perhaps suggest that, though English literature has produced no dialogues of such permanent beauty and importance as those which have come to us from the Greeks, and though English dialogues, in general, have been far less dramatic and far more expository in tone than the best of those in classic literature, they have been more numerous and of greater interest than is generally realized. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."