Sales catalogue 594: Maggs Bros

Date:
1934
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/135
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 594: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    FOREWORD i) Ga ron introducing Part II (Seventeenth Century) of our new series of Catalogues devoted to English Literature and History prior to 1800, some explana- tion is perhaps needed for its appearance in two sections. By dividing our stock in this field into three distinct Parts, dealing with the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries respectively, we hoped to present it in a more accessible form by keeping down the size of each catalogue. The Seventeenth Century has, however, occupied greater space than was at first anticipated, and rather than defeat our object by issuing a single catalogue of close on 400 pages, we have thought it wiser to divide it alphabetically into two sections. It is proposed to issue the second section almost immediately. The Seventeenth Century is one of exceptional interest. The varied course of its History it reflected in its Literature. The age of exploration under Queen Elizabeth, gave place to the age of colonisation under James I. Literature flourished, and even King James himself excelled as an author, leaving a body of writings which entitle him to a unique place among English kings for breadth of intellectual interest and literary faculty. The reign of Charles I not only divided the country into two camps—Royalist and Parliamen- tarian, but divided its literature also into two very distinct classes, emanating from the cavalier and puritan respectively. Literature took sides, resulting in a devastating and bitter pamphlet warfare. With the return of the monarchy under Charles II, came the restoration of the Drama and a revol: against the shackling sway of the Puritans. Under Cromwell the Theatre had been rigidly suppressed, but with the Restoration, drama came into its own again, tended by the able hands of Dryden, Congreve, Etherege, Farquhar, and a host of others. To conjure up but a few of the great names in the literature of the Seventeenth Century—Shakespeéare, Ben. Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Donne, Herrick, Milton, Bunyan, Dryden—is to realtse its paramount tmportance, and ensure for the succeeding pages the closest perusal. . K.G.M.
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