g--After the Portrait by Field
Talfourd 110

George Meredith with His Daughter and Grandchildren--From
a Photograph Taken Shortly Before His Death 118

Flint Cottage, Boxhill, the Home of George Meredith--His
Writing was done in a Small Swiss Chalet in the Garden 120

Robert Louis Stevenson--The Author's Intimate Associates
Pronounce this Photograph a Perfect Presentation of His
Most Typical Expression 126

Stevenson's Home at Valima, Samoa, Looking Toward Vaea 128

Thomas Hardy--A Portrait Which Brings Out Strikingly the
Man of Creative Power, the Artist, the Philosopher and
the Poet 132

Rudyard Kipling--A Striking Likeness of the Author in a
Characteristic Pose 140

Rudyard Kipling--From a Cartoon by W. Nicholson 144

_Introduction_

_My aim in this little book has been to give short sketches and
estimates of the greatest modern English writers from Macaulay to
Stevenson and Kipling. Omissions there are, but my effort has been to
give the most characteristic writers a place and to try to stimulate
the reader's interest in the man behind the book as well as in the
best works of each author. Too much space is devoted in most literary
criticism to the bare facts of biography and the details of essays or
novels or histories written by authors. My plan has been to arouse
interest both in the men and their books so that any reader of this
volume may be stimulated to extend his knowledge of the modern English
classics._

_These chapters include the greatest English writers during the last
one hundred and fifty years and they have been prepared mainly for
those who have no thorough knowledge of modern English books or
authors. They are of limited scope so that few quotations have been
possible. But they have been written with an eager desire to help
those who care to know the best works of modern English authors. In
the same spirit the most appropriate illustrations have been secured
and a helpful bibliography has been added. If this book helps readers
to secure one lasting friend among these authors it will have done
good missionary work; for to make the books of one man or woman of
genius a part of our mental possessions is to be set on the broad
highway to literary cultu