English Literature in the Sixteenth Century; Excluding Drama
Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1954. First edition. Large octavo (8 7/8 inches tall), original black cloth, gilt spine, original dust jacket. Cloth mottled but gilt bright, minor tanning to blank flyleaves, sporadic pencil marks throughout text, modest staining and toning to price-clipped dust jacket. A very good copy. Item #1652
"SOMEHOW SUCH AN APPARENT MAKESHIFT AS THE ELIZABETHAN CHURCH BECAME THE CHURCH OF HOOKER, DONNE, ANDREWES, TAYLOR, AND HERBERT"
First edition, first printing, of English Literature in the Sixteenth Century—a major investigation of England's "Christian literary imagination"—based on The Clark Lectures delivered by C.S. Lewis at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1944. A solid copy of an increasingly expensive book.
Published as volume III of the Oxford History of English Literature (edited by F.P. Wilson and Bonamy Dobree), "the book's immense labors weighed upon him for many years, and he took to calling the series 'OHEL' and, finally 'O HELL'" (Zaleski and Zaleski). The text consists of three main sections: Book I. Late Medieval, Book II. 'Drab,' Book III. 'Golden.' A concluding Epilogue: New Tendencies describes the sixteenth century as "one of narrow escapes and unexpected recoveries." With a brief Preface (dated, "C.S.L. / Magdalen College / Oxford / 7 October 1953") providing some perspective on the books discussed: "Good books which are remote from modern sympathy need to be treated at greater length than good books which everyone already knows and loves." The text is supplemented with a series of extensive appendices: a Chronological Table, a Bibliography, and an Index. First printing: with four series titles marked as "Published" on rear jacket panel and three marked as "Published" on inner flyleaf. Zaleski and Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings.
Price: $100.00