內容提要
本書精選19世紀末20世紀初英國散文名家包括羅素、普萊斯利、蕭伯納、毛姆、吉辛、康拉德、E．M．福斯特、高爾斯華綏、赫胥黎、維吉尼亞·伍爾夫等的散文40篇，附有作者簡介、詳盡的注釋及三篇論述英國散文的文章。本書選文精當，注釋詳盡，可較大程度地提高中級以上英語學習者對現代英國散文的了解和鑑賞。錢鍾書先生和陸谷孫先生分別為本書初版和新版作序。
作者簡介
徐燕謀(1906—1986)，江蘇崑山人。復旦大學英語教授。1929年畢業於光華大學。1930年起先後任教於無錫中學、光華大學附中、湖南國立師範學院、光華大學、華東師範大學和復旦大學。曾主編全國高校英語專業統編教材《英語》第七、八冊，還曾編注《現代英文選》、《現代英國名家文選》等，並為商務印書館注釋蕭伯納、高爾斯華綏及馬克·吐溫的作品多部。另有《徐燕謀詩鈔》傳世。
目錄
1.Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted
Bertrand Russell
2.Rivalry
E.V.Lucas
3.The Successful Doctor
George Bernard Shaw
4.Leisure
Vernon Lee
5.Poetry and University Education
Arthur Quiller-Couch
6.A Relic
Max Beerbohm
7.From the Mouse's Point of View
Lord Dunsany
8.Romance
W.Somerset Maugham
9.On Being Hard Up
Jerome K.Jerome
10.Confidence
Joseph Conrad
11.The Drawing-Room
Mary E.Coleridge
12.Evolution
John Galsworthy
13.On Poverty
Hilaire Belloc
14.On Destroying Books
J.C.Squire
15.The Patron and the Crocus
Virginia Woolf
16.Fog
G.S.Street
17.Fact and Fiction
John Middleton Murry
18.Her Own Village
W.H.Hudson
19.Signs of Character
A.A.Milne
20.The Wife
H.V.Morton
21.Conversation
A.C.Benson
22.The Return from Siwa
E.M.Forster
23.On Running After One's Hat
G.K.Chesterton
24.The Rose
Logan Pearsall Smith
25.Sunday Before the War
A.Clutton-Brock
26.Laughter in Court
Beverley Nichols
27.The Traveller's Eye View
Aldous Huxley
28.Fifield Ashes
Maurice Henry Hewlett
29.The Barber
Arnold Bennett
30.Marriage
Y.Y.
31.Set Free
R.B.Cunninghame Graham
32.This England
Edward Thomas
33.On Man's Extravagance
J.B.Priestley
34.Actors
Augustine Birrell
35. An Afternoon Walk in October
William Hale White
36.On Talking to One's Self
A.G.Gardiner
37.Cloud
Alice Meynell
38.Selections from The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
George Gissing
39.Boswell's Life of Johnson
George Gordon
40.Bed-Books and Night-Lights
H.M.Tomlinson
Appendix
1.The English Essayist
John Freeman
2.The Art of the Essayist
A.C.Benson
3.The Defects of English Prose
Arthur Clutton-Brock
