Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books

This anthology gathers prefaces, prologues, and epilogues that open a vivid window onto the minds of major writers and thinkers, from Caxton, Calvin, Copernicus, Bacon, and Johnson to Wordsworth, Hugo, Whitman, and Taine. More than introductions, these pieces are acts of self-revelation: they show ambition, doubt, piety, wit, and conviction at the moment a work first meets its reader. William Caxton's contributions are especially rich, tracing the early life of English print culture through his candid accounts of translating The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, his devotion to Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, and his uneasy balance between humility and literary ambition. He also defends his choices in The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers, celebrates moral instruction in The Golden Legend and Caton, and speaks with civic concern for London's virtue and decline. Alongside these practical and moral voices stand sharp critical reflections on Shakespeare, praising his comic genius and natural speech while questioning his carelessness, structure, and tragic method. Together, the selections present the preface as a lasting literary form, where personality, history, and purpose emerge with striking force. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.