"A work which reflects the utmost credit on its author ... luminous and at the same time impartial."—Westminster Review.
"This excellent epitome ... very happily indicates the golden afterglow of the Elizabethan sun."—Daily Chronicle.
THE AGE OF JOHNSON
"The uniform excellence of Mr. Seccombe's manual of English literary history from 1748 to 1798 affords scarcely any opening for detailed criticism. Little can be said, except that everything is just as it ought to be: the arrangement perfect, the length of the notices justly proportioned, the literary judgements sound and illuminating; while the main purpose of conveying information is kept so steadily in view that, while the book is worthy of a place in the library, the student could desire no better guide for an examination."—Bookman.
"He has knowledge, he is eminently careful, and, best of all in a handbook-maker of this kind, he is judicial. We like Mr. Seccombe's arrangement. There is a capital introduction, solid and grave rather than brilliant, on which the student may stand in confidence before he dives off into the stream of his tutor's survey. Briefly, we have here a thorough, almost encyclopaedic, review of a great literary period—stimulating to the younger student, and to his elder refreshing by its perception."—Outlook.
"This book is one of the best of its kind, and we heartily recommend it to our readers."—Journal of Education.
"The young student could not read a better book to get a comprehensive and yet detailed account of the literary history of the latter half of the eighteenth century."—Morning Post.
THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH
"It is an admirable little work all the way through and one which the ripest students of the period may read with interest and profit."—Guardian.
"The desiderated text-book of the period 1798 to 1830 A.D. is no longer to seek. More than that, it has been written by the one Englishman most competent to deal with it. Whatever Professor Herford does he does well; but he has given us nothing at once so good and so helpful as this book."—University Correspondent.