Great leaders: Historic portraits from the great historians

by Unknown

New revised edition of Bancroft’s History of the United States.

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, from the Discovery of the Continent to the Establishment of the Constitution in 1789. By George Bancroft. Complete in 6 vols., 8vo, printed from new type, and bound in cloth, uncut, with gilt top, $2.50; sheep, $3.50; half calf, $4.50 per volume. Vol. VI contains the History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States, and a Portrait of Mr. Bancroft.

In this edition of his great work the author has made extensive changes in the text, condensing in places, enlarging in others, and carefully revising. It is practically a new work embodying the results of the latest researches, and enjoying the advantage of the author’s long and mature experience.

“On comparing this work with the corresponding volume of the ‘Centenary’ edition of 1876, one is surprised to see how extensive changes the author has found desirable, even after so short an interval. The first thing that strikes one is the increased number of chapters, resulting from subdivision. The first volume contains two volumes of the original, and is divided into thirty-eight chapters instead of eighteen. This is in itself an improvement. But the new arrangement is not the result merely of subdivision; the matter is rearranged in such a manner as vastly to increase the lucidity and continuousness of treatment. In the present edition Mr. Bancroft returns to the principle of division into periods, abandoned in the ‘Centenary’ edition. His division is, however, a new one. As the permanent shape taken by a great historical work, this new arrangement is certainly an improvement.”—The Nation (New York).

“The work as a whole is in better shape, and is of course more authoritative than ever before. This last revision will be without doubt, both from its desirable form and accurate text, the standard one.”—Boston Traveller.

“It has not been granted to many historians to devote half a century to the history of a single people, and to live long enough, and, let us add, to be willing and wise enough, to revise and rewrite in an honored old age the work of a whole lifetime.”—New York Mail and Express.

“The extent and thoroughness of this revision would hardly be guessed without comparing the editions side by side. The condensation of the text amounts to something over one third of the previous edition. There has also been very considerable recasting of the text. On the whole, our examination of the first volume leads us to believe that the thought of the historian loses nothing by the abbreviation of the text. A closer and later approximation to the best results of scholarship and criticism is reached. The public gains by its more compact brevity and in amount of matter, and in economy of time and money.”—The Independent (New York).

“There is nothing to be said at this day of the value of ‘Bancroft.’ Its authority is no longer in dispute, and as a piece of vivid and realistic historical writing it stands among the best works of its class. It may be taken for granted that this new edition will greatly extend its usefulness.”—Philadelphia North American.

HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, from the Revolution to the Civil War. By John Bach McMaster. To be completed in five volumes. Vols. I and II, 8vo, cloth, gilt top, $2.50 each.

Scope of the Work.—In the course of this narrative much is written of wars, conspiracies, and rebellions; of Presidents, of Congresses, of embassies, of treaties, of the ambition of political leaders, and of the rise of great parties in the nation. Yet the history of the people is the chief theme. At every stage of the splendid progress which separates the America of Washington and Adams from the America in which we live, it has been the author’s purpose to describe the dress, the occupations, the amusements, the literary canons of the times; to note the changes of manners and morals; to trace the growth of that humane spirit which abolished punishment for debt, and reformed the discipline of prisons and of jails; to recount the manifold improvements which, in a thousand ways, have multiplied the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness of our race; to describe the rise and progress of that long series of mechanical inventions and discoveries which is now the admiration of the world, and our just pride and boast; to tell how, under the benign influence of liberty and peace, there sprang up, in the course of a single century, a prosperity unparalleled in the annals of human affairs.