Writers from Sydney Smith to Julien Benda have argued that the father or discoverer of an idea is the man who popularises it rather than he who originates it.Others pitch the case of the populariser less high，but still think that he is entitled to as much esteem as the originator.Now what is an anthologist but one who makes the good things in literature accessible to many and thus spreads aesthetic joy in the widest commonalty?He therefore in the scheme of things stands only next to the writers he has anthologised.I should like to put forth such a claim formy friends the compilers of this book but for the fact that they are very modestmen and would be embarrassed.
Anthologies have come to supersede A Tale of Two Cities，John Halifax，Gentleman，etc.in first-year and second-year English courses in Chinese colleges.The missionaries who used to dominate the field of English teaching in China had an uncanny knack of making over the classroom to the Reign of Dulness by choosing the most tedious Victorian novels for the delectation of their students.On the other hand，the prevailing fashion of serving quick lunches out of cheap and not very readable stuffs is also deplorable.The present book avoids both extremes between which English teaching in China oscillates like the famous drunken peasant swaying on horseback.Ranging very wide in its choice，it serves adm irably the two-fold purpose of light reading and serious study.The notes，too，are very helpful，and，where the text is elusively a llusive，reveal a brilliant skill in literary detective work.
C.S.Ch ien（钱锺书）
July1947
CONTENTS
1.Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted
Bertrand Russell
2.Rivalry
E.V.Lucas
3.The Successful Doctor
George Bernard Shaw
4.Leisure
Vernon Lee
5.Poetry and University Education
Arthur Quiller-Couch
6.A Relic
Max Beerbohm
7.From the Mouse's Point of View
Lord Dunsany
8.Romance
W.Somerset Maugham
9.On Being Hard Up
Jerome K.Jerome
10.Confidence
Joseph Conrad
11.The Drawing-Room
Mary E.Coleridge
12.Evolution
John Galsworthy
13.On Poverty
Hilaire Belloc
14.On Destroying Books
J.C.Squire
15.The Patron and the Crocus
Virginia Woolf
16.Fog
G.S.Street
17.Fact and Fiction
John Middleton Murry
18.Her Own Village
W.H.Hudson
19.Signs of Character
A.A.Milne
20.The Wife
H.V.Morton
21.Conversation
A.C.Benson
22.The Return from Siwa
E.M.Forster
23.On Running After One's Hat
G.K.Chesterton
24.The Rose
Logan Pearsall Smith
25.Sunday Before the War
A.Clutton-Brock
26.Laughter in Court
Beverley Nichols
27.The Traveller's Eye View
Aldous Huxley
28.Fifield Ashes
Maurice Henry Hewlett
29.The Barber
Arnold Bennett
30.Marriage
Y.Y.
31.Set Free
R.B.Cunninghame Graham
32.This England
Edward Thomas
33.On Man's Extravagance
J.B.Priestley
34.Actors
Augustine Birrell
35.An Afternoon Walk in October
William Hale White
36.On Talking to One's Self
A.G.Gardiner
37.Cloud
Alice Meynell
38.Selections from The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
George Gissing
39.Boswell's Life of Johnson
George Gordon
40.Bed-Books and Night-Lights
H.M.Tomlinson
Appendix
1.The English Essayist
John Freeman
2.The Art of the Essayist
A.C.Benson
3.The Defects of English Prose
Arthur Clutton-Brock
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