The Camelot Classics.
Reading edition
PROSPECTUS.
The main idea in instituting this Edition is to provide the general reader with a comprehensive Prose Library after his own heart,—an Edition, that is to say, cheap, without the reproach which cheapness usually implies, comprising volumes of shapely form, well printed, well bound, and thoroughly representative of the leading prose writers of all time. Placed thus upon a popular basis, making the principle of literary selection a broadly human rather than an academic one, the Edition will, the Publisher hopes, contest not ineffectually the critical suffrages of the democratic shilling.
As in the Canterbury Poets issued from the same press, to which this aims at being a companion series, the Editing of the volumes will be a special feature. This will be entrusted to writers who will each, in freshly treated, suggestive Introductions, give just that account of the book and its author which will enable the significance of both in life and literature, and their relation to modern thought, to be readily grasped. And where, for the successful rescue of old-time books for modern reading, revision and selection are necessary, the editing will be done with careful zeal and with reverence always for the true spirit of the book. In the first volume a General Introduction by the Editor will appear, explaining more fully the bearing of the series, which, in course of time, it is hoped, will form
A Complete Prose Library for the People.