Author: Thomas Miller

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-14

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 9781331361930

Excerpt from History of the Anglo-Saxons: From the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest In the present attempt at a popular History of the Anglo-Saxons, I have endeavoured to avoid the dry, hard, matter-of-fact style of previous historians - to describe its important truths in a more picturesque and familiar manner - to bring out the actors and scenery more boldly before the eye of the reader - to throw more of a poetical spirit into the - narrative and to give it all the fascination of fiction, without altering a single recorded fact. Such a task scarcely presents an obstacle; history itself furnishes the romance-writer with the most dramatic incidents of his work, and they only require to be cast in a somewhat imaginative mould to make them more interesting than fiction. The hard, naked outline is not all that is necessary to represent truth; and it is this very want of a finer finish and a richer style of colouring that has driven so many readers to the Romance School of history, in which they have found only distorted facts and historical caricatures instead of truth. There are many who argue that the paths which lead to knowledge must of necessity be difficult and rugged. I believe that it is in the power of any author to make them much pleasanter than they are; and that to accomplish this he has only to amuse as well as to instruct, even as an agreeable companion will, by cheerful conversation, seem to shorten and lighten the way, however long and wearisome it may be in itself. Such a companion I have endeavoured to make this volume, and to bring the very scenery before the "mind's eye" of the reader, whether the events transpired on sea or land, in castle or cathedral, whenever such word-painting adds to the beauty, richness, and interest of our historical descriptions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.