H. D Traill

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the First Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-1683) was a prominent politician during the reign of Charles II. He was a founder of the Whig Party, champion of the philosophical works of John Locke, and reprieved prisoner in the Tower of London. In 1886 the popular British biographer H. D. Traill brought balance to a controversial life.

This 1897 collection of essays discusses veteran authors, schools of fiction, and criticizes two then-rising authors: Stephen Crane and Arthur Morrison. Chapters include “The Political Novel,” “The Politics of Literature,” “Matthew Arnold,” and “The Future of Humour,” among others.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) wrote the famous poems "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan," but he was also an influential philosopher, literary critic, and forerunner of transcendentalism. This 1884 biographical study explores his life and works, divided into Coleridge's "Poetical," "Critical," and "Metaphysical and Theological" periods.

These essays, or "pamphlets," published in 1850, are a vehement denunciation of what Thomas Carlyle believed to be the political, social, and religious injustices of the era. The collection's best known essay is "Hudson's Statue," an attack on plans to erect a monument in honor of the bankrupted financier and "railway king" George Hudson.