The English reader : what every literate person needs to know

Summary: "In this sequel to the best-selling The American Reader, mother-and-son team Diane Ravitch and Michael Ravitch have gathered together the best and most memorable poems, essays, songs, and orations in English history, capturing in one volume writings that have shaped not only England, but democratic culture around the globe." "Here are words that changed the world, words that inspired revolutions as well as lovers, dreamers, and singers, words that every educated person once knew - and should know today. Framed by two inspiring speeches - Queen Elizabeth before the invasion of the Spanish Armada and Winston Churchill during the dark days of World War II - the book features work by William Wordsworth and W. H. Auden, Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf, Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and many other equally eminent writers. Readers will find ardent love poems such as Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love" and Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" There are also more philosophical works such as Yeats' "The Second Coming" and Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach." Stimulating excerpts are included from Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, Walter Pater and John Ruskin, Edmund Burke and Thomas Carlyle, and other influential thinkers. In addition, the book includes song lyrics ranging from "Greensleeves" to "Rule, Britannia," and other works that capture the spirit of an era. The editors also provide brief, fascinating biographies of each writer. The English Reader offers the best of the best - the soaring language and seminal ideas that fired the imagination of the English-speaking world."--BOOK JACKET.

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