Austin Dobson & W. Hall Griffin 
A Handbook of English Literature (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

This 1897 edition of Dobson’s 1874 work was revised and extended by Griffin. It was originally intended to assist candidates in preparation for civil service examinations but under Griffin the volume took on a more general cast.  As he wrote in his introduction, ‘it is simply designed to give a concise and, as a rule, chronological record of the principal English authors.’ The book covers the years 600-1896—discussing the most important literary figures.

Circa l’autore

Henry Austin Dobson (1840–1921), known as Austin Dobson, was a distinguished English poet and essayist.  He published his first collection of poems, Vignettes in Rhyme, in 1873. In addition to poetry, he also wrote a number of biographies, including studies of Henry Fielding, Richard Steele, Fanny Burney, Oliver Goldsmith, and Horace Walpole.
 
W. Hall Griffin was a professor of English Language and Literature at Queens College, Oxford. He wrote The Life of Robert Browning with Notices of his Writings, His Family, and His Friends (1910).