The New Oxford Book of English Prose

by John Gross (Editor)

This book--unique in its international scope--gathers together those rare jewels of the English language that take plain prose to artistic heights. Beginning with Sir Thomas Malory and ending with Kazuo Ishiguro, this anthology chronologically traces the evolution of prose. It shows how it
gained confidence and extended its range in the late seventeenth century, and then how, in the eighteenth century, it dispensed with the ornate style of literary giants like Milton and Donne in favor of more concise and compact modern style. The material included in this anthology is literary, but
literary, as the editor states in the introduction, is not the narrow term that it is often made to beit embraces an enormous range of experience and response. The New Oxford Book of English Prose pays tribute to literature's vibrant diversity by offering glimpses of master craftsmanship from around
the globe. Included here are excerpts from writers of such varied backgrounds as Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Vladimir Nabokov, and Mulk Raj Anand. From the eloquent political treatises of Burke to the bold narrative strokes of Herman Melville, readers will find that the selections contained
within this volume superbly illustrate the expressive powers of prose

Genres: Essays, Reference

1012 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

John Gross was the editor of The Times Literary Supplement in London, a senior book editor and book critic on the staff of The New York Times in New York, and theatre critic for The Sunday Telegraph. He was also literary editor of The New Statesman and Spectator magazines.

Reviews

[Cook Rundle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh happy farrago of prose! Miscellany of the Muses! Close companion of quiet delights through times trying and tremendous, thank you!

Were I to go on gushing thus my review would be disingenuous.

Brief selections of nearly five-hundred authors spanning the late 15th to the mid 20th centuries are in chronological order stuffed into a prodigious paperback of over a thousand pages. Our editor here is the ever hectoring John Gross, “a writer and reviewer, and theatre critic of the Sunday Telegraph since 1989. He was editor of the Times Literary Supplement from 1974 to 1981, and on the staff of the New York Times” and other chaffy publications good for collecting dust and must.

In his brief but puffed up introduction our turgid guide writes that this New Oxford Book of English Prose has three chief objectives:

First, it attempts to provide a representative selection from the work of the major prose-writers in the English language, and as many of the more interesting lesser ones as space [and tiresome jocularity] will allow. Second, it is meant to illustrate the resources and achievements of English prose as an artistic medium and an instrument of expression; to that extent it is an anthology not simply of prose, but of prose-styles.

(Would that it were only thus.)

Finally, nothing it contains has been included merely on the grounds of historical interest: each extract has been chosen on its own account, because I find it moving, enlightening, or entertaining, and in the hope that readers will feel the same.—Now look: my reading of English prose has been both elephantine and sundry, but do not for a moment think that I’ve read carefully and in full all of those sources from which in the forthcoming I present delectable samples. I simply rifled through those foxed and tattered copies of texts that I’ve marked up and perused over my long august career, selecting those passages that at the time I apparently thought were amusing or otherwise just flat-out awesome. A few you’ll love, others detest, most will leave you bored and indifferent. If read regularly and straight through from cover to cover, it is now and then likely to induce those tremendously gaping yawns, which fill one’s weary eyes with water and threaten with alarming cracks and pops to unhinge the jaw completely. And this is as it should be, isn’t it, my nondescript little charlatans? After all, it is representative of English prose from the late 15th to the mid 20th century. So, if you muster the ample time and fortitude the reading through it duly demands, you should undoubtedly discover not only the general changes in the styles in which English prose was being written across the span of five centuries, but also you'll be pleased to discover a number of authors whose writings you will wish to run to as soon as you've accomplished this feat. Should you not think such an endeavour worthy of your time, you might try sporting with more suitable pursuits, like running, lifting, pulling, pushing, fighting, destroying things, and falling on a sword-point.

One couldn’t feel more loved and welcomed. (This paragraph of gratuitous browbeating I do admit to quoting from a nebulous memory; but the gist is all there, I should think.)

Now, it will I imagine be valuable to the prospective reader to find a complete list of those authors whose prose-writings are sampled in this enormous compendium. In chronological order, then, those lucid writers are:

Sir Thomas Malory
William Caxton
Sir Thomas Moore
Edmund Spenser
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Philip Sidney
Francis Bacon
Robert Burton
Sir Thomas Browne
John Milton
John Locke
J.G. Fichte
G.W.F Hegel
P.F. Schlegel
Martin Heidegger
Michael Bublé
Mariah Carey
R.U. Stillreading
U.R. Naïve
…

Let the idiot who thought I was about to type out the first and last names of 500 authors drop my review and move on. I’ll not encumber myself with the performance of a tediosity for which even the most dedicated drudge wants patience. I will however provide a few samples of the most stylish and elegant prose that one should like to find in this weighty volume:

I know not by what mischance the writing of epistles dedicatory has fallen into disuse, whether through the vanity of authors or the humility of patrons. But the practice seems to me so very beautiful and becoming that I have ventured to make an essay in the modest art, and lay with formalities my first book at your feet. I have it must be confessed many fears lest I shall be arraigned of presumption in choosing so exalted a name as your own to place at the beginning of this history; but I hope that such a censure will not be too lightly passed upon me, for if I am guilty it is but of a most natural pride that the accidents of my life should allow me to sail the little pinnace of my wit under your protection. But though I can clear myself of such a charge, I am still minded to use the tongue of apology, for with what face can I offer you a book treating of so vain and fantastical a thing as love? I know that in the judgment of many the amorous passion is accounted a shameful thing and ridiculous; indeed it must be confessed that more blushes have risen for love's sake than for any other cause and that lovers are an eternal laughing-stock. Still, as the book will be found to contain matter of deeper import than mere venery, inasmuch as it treats of the great contrition of its chiefest character, and of canonical things in certain pages, I am not without hopes that your Eminence will pardon my writing of a loving Abbe, for which extravagance let my youth excuse me. Then I must crave your forgiveness for addressing you in a language other than the Roman, but my small freedom in Latinity forbids me to wander beyond the idiom of my vernacular. I would not for the world that your delicate Southern ear should be offended by a barbarous assault of rude and Gothic words; but methinks no language is rude that can boast polite writers, and not a few such have flourished in this country in times past, bringing our common speech to very great perfection. In the present age, alas! our pens are ravished by unlettered authors and unmannered critics, that make a havoc rather than a building, a wilderness rather than a garden. But, alack! what boots it to drop tears upon the preterit? (This from Aubrey Beardsley was not included.)

What can we expect when we vie with one another every day in admitting to degrees any and every impecunious student drawn from the dregs of the people who applies for one? They need only to have learnt by heart one or two definitions and distinctions, and to have spent the usual number of years in chopping logic – it matters not what progress they have made or of what character they are; they can be idiots, wasters, idlers, gamesters, boon companions, utterly worthless and abandoned, squanderers and profligates; let them only have spent so many years at the university in the capacity, real or supposed, of gownsmen, and they will find those who for the sake of profit or friendship will get them presented, and, what is more, in many cases with splendid testimonials to their character and learning. These they procure on leaving from persons who unquestionably jeopardize their own reputation by writing them. For (as one saith) doctors and professors think of nothing save how from their various professions, and especially those which are irregular, they may further their own advantage, and benefit themselves at the expense of the State. Our annual university heads as a rule pray only for the greatest possible number of freshmen to squeeze money from, and do not care whether they are educated or not, provided they are sleek, well groomed, and good-looking, and in one word, men of means. Philophasters innocent of the arts become Masters of Arts, and those are made wise by order who are endowed with no wisdom, and have no qualifications for a degree save a desire for it. Theologasters, if they can but pay, have enough learning and to spare, and proceed to the very highest degrees. Hence it comes that such a pack of vile buffoons, ignoramuses wandering in the twilight of learning, ghosts of clergymen, itinerant quacks, dolts, clods, asses, mere cattle, intrude with unwashed feet upon the sacred precincts of Theology, bringing with them nothing save brazen impudence, and some hackneyed quillets and scholastic trifles not good enough for a crowd at a street corner. This is that base and starveling class, needy, vagabond, slaves of their bellies, worthy to be sent back to the plough-tail, fitter for the pigsty than the altar, which has basely prostituted the study of divinity. These it is who fill the pulpits and creep into noblemen’s houses. Having no other means of livelihood, and being incapable both mentally and physically of filling any other post, they find here an anchorage, and clutch at the priesthood, not from religious motives, but, as Paul says, ‘huckstering the word of God.’ (This by Robert Burton was not included.)

The Devil that did but buffet Saint Paul plays methinks at sharp with me. Let me be nothing if within the compass of myself I do not find the battle of Lepanto, passion against reason, reason against faith, faith against the Devil, and my conscience against all. There is another man within me that’s angry with me, rebukes, commands and dastards me. (Browne)

Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce callosities; miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days, and, our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrance, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetition. (Browne)

Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, someone may perhaps be heard offering at high strains in new and lofty measure to sing and celebrate thy divine mercies and marvellous judgments in this land throughout all ages. (Milton)

This is a vile world, dear sister, and I can easily comprehend, that whether one is at Paris or London, one is stifled with a certain mixture of fool and knave, that most people are composed of. I would have patience with a parcel of polite rogues, or your downright honest fools; but father Adam shines through his whole progeny. (Lady Mary Montagu)

But now I hear the rusty hinges of my beloved’s door give me creaking invitation. (Samuel Richardson)

Of the wall [of China] it is very easy to assign the motives. It secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of barbarians, whose unskillfulness in arts made it easier for them to supply their wants by rapine than by industry, and who from time to time poured in upon the habitations of peaceful commerce, as vultures descend upon domestic fowl. Their celerity and fierceness made the wall necessary, and their ignorance made it efficacious. But for the pyramids no reason has ever been given adequate to the cost and labour of the work. The narrowness of the chambers proves that it could afford no retreat from enemies, and treasures might have been reposited at far less expense with equal security. It seems to have been erected only in compliance with that hunger of imagination which preys incessantly upon life, and must be always appeased by some employment. Those who have already all that they can enjoy must enlarge their desires. He that has built for use, till use is supplied, must begin to build for vanity, and extend his plan to the utmost power of human performance, that he may not be soon reduced to form another wish. (Johnson, who is described by Boswell’s uncle as ‘A robust genius, born to grapple with whole libraries.’)

Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona! (Johnson)

[A]nd as some men gaze with admiration at the colours of a tulip, or the wing of a butterfly, so I was by nature an admirer of happy human faces. (Oliver Goldsmith)

The remains of Julian were interred at Tarsus in Cilicia; but his stately tomb, which arose in that city on the banks of the cold and limpid Cydnus, was displeasing to the faithful friends who loved and revered the memory of that extraordinary man. The philosopher expressed a very reasonable wish that the disciple of Plato might have reposed amidst the groves of the Academy, while the soldier exclaimed, in bolder accents, that the ashes of Julian should have been mingled with those of Caesar, in the field of Mars, and among the ancient monuments of Roman virtue. The history of princes does not very frequently renew the example of a similar competition. (Gibbon)

In the apprehension of modern times Petrarch is the Italian songster of Laura and love. In the harmony of his Tuscan rhymes Italy applauds, or rather adores, the father of her lyric poetry; and his verse, or at least his name, is repeated by the enthusiasm or affection of amorous sensibility. Whatever may be the private taste of a stranger, his slight and superficial knowledge should humbly acquiesce in the taste of a learned nation; yet I may hope or presume that the Italians do not compare the tedious uniformity of sonnets and elegies with the sublime compositions of their epic muse, the original wildness of Dante, the regular beauties of Tasso, and the boundless variety of the incomparable Ariosto. The merits of the lover I am still less qualified to appreciate: nor am I deeply interested in a metaphysical passion for a nymph so shadowy, that her existence has been questioned; for a matron so prolific, that she was delivered of eleven legitimate children, while her amorous swain sighed and sung at the fountain of Vaucluse. But in the eyes of Petrarch and those of his graver contemporaries his love was a sin, and Italian verse a frivolous amusement. His Latin works of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence established his serious reputation which was soon diffused from Avignon over France and Italy: his friends and disciples were multiplied in every city; and if the ponderous volume of his writings be now abandoned to a long repose, our gratitude must applaud the man who, by precept and example, revived the spirit and study of the Augustan age. (Gibbon)

I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more, before I bid it farewell. (Keats)

There is perhaps no class of dwellings so pleasing as the rural seats of the English gentry. In the parks and pleasure grounds, nature, dressed yet not disguised by art, wears her most alluring form. In the buildings good sense and good taste combine to produce a happy union of the comfortable and the graceful. The pictures, the musical instruments, the library, would in any other country be considered as proving the owner to be an eminently polished and accomplished man. (Macaulay)

The presence of these old Cavaliers, with their old swords and holsters, and with their old stories about Goring and Lunsford, gave to the musters of militia an earnest and warlike aspect which would otherwise have been wanting. (Macaulay)

Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet and renders it endurable. Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl’s plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and the wave in which he dips. (Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.)

Hopeless of the future, I wished but this—that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set out. (C.Bronte)

[Sunset. Ahab alone. At the stern window looking without:] I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, wher’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. [….] Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. (Melville)

Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town. (Melville)

Vari-colured lights from the stained glass windows broke through the tree-shadows. (George Eliot)

A wind-in-the-orchard style, that tumbled down here and there an appreciable fruit with uncouth bluster; sentences without commencements running to abrupt endings and smoke, like waves against a sea-wall, learned dictionary words giving a hand to street-slang, and accents falling on them haphazard, like slant rays from driving clouds; all the pages in a breeze, the whole book producing a kind of electrical agitation in the mind and the joints. (George Meredith)

Urchins upon whose curly pates grey seniors lay their hands with conventional encomium and speculation look older than they are immediately. (George Meredith)

The sun in the valley sharpened his beams on squares of buttercups, and made a pond of diamond. (George Meredith)

The perfume of the little flowers of the lime-tree fell through the air upon them like rain; while time seemed to move ever more slowly to the murmur of the bees in it, till it almost stood still on June afternoons. How insignificant, at the moment, seem the influences of the sensible things which are tossed and fall and lie about us, so, or so, in the environment of early childhood. […] that little white room with the window across which the heavy blossoms could beat so peevishly in the wind, with just that particular catch or throb, such a sense of teasing in it, on gusty mornings. (Walter Pater)

His eyes still kept note of the clump of trees. From all places near it the clannish yell of the enemy could be heard. The little flames of rifles leaped from it. The song of the bullets was in the air and shells snarled among the tree-tops. One tumbled directly into the middle of a hurrying group and exploded in crimson fury. There was an instant’s spectacle of a man, almost over it, throwing up his hands to shield his eyes. Other men, punched by bullets, fell in grotesque agonies. The regiment left a coherent trail of bodies. (Stephen Crane)

At breakfast, Golden Syrup imported from London would entwist with its glowing coils the revolving spoon from which enough of it had slithered onto a piece of Russian bread and better. (Nabokov)

“Ah!” once exclaimed a former professor of mine, “His sentence coils too!”

[Eric Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gets me all enamored and emphatic, in the mood to say culturally proprietary things in the line of what James Merrill once said about the OED: "it's the collective unconscious of the race."

[Paro Rose]

THis is very nice book