Essays of today [antikvár]

Preface ESSAYS OF TODAY was finst published in 1923 and has enjoyed wide and continuous readership. The judgement of the original editor, F. H. Pritchard, has been attested by the popu-larity of his selection with that audience whom he had particularly in mind—the upper forms in secondary schools. After forty years, however, teachers and scholars may well feel that not all the essays he included have quite the same appeal as they had to earlier readers. Gradually and inevitably taste changes; there is a shift of interest in subject-matter, a subtle modification of prefer-ence in style. The idiom of thought and expression of one genera-tion is never exactly that of the next. Although many of the essays chosen by F. H. Pritchard remain as delightfully readable today as ever, the time has come for changes to be made. In replacing some of the essays of the original edition I have been governed by one main consideration: that my choice would have had the approval of the first editor. Because of their subject-matter or style many recent essays that may well have constituted an entirely different type of anthology have been here excluded. Essays of Today had its distinctive tone. The present editor hopes that his selections for this new edition, which has been completely reset, blend with the older pieces to enrich but not radically to alter the long-established appeal of the original book. w.h.m. Manchester Grammar School, /965