The book is Handbook of Universal Literature From The Best and Latest Authorities. This work was begun many years ago as a literary exercise to meet the personal requirements of the writer which were such as most persons experience on leaving school and completing their education as the phrase is. The literatures of different nations are so related and have so influenced each other that it is only by a survey of all that any single literature or even any great literary work can be fully comprehended as the various groups and figures of a historical picture must be viewed as a whole before they can assume their true place and proportions.