[Gutenberg 39001] • Social Transformations of the Victorian Age: A Survey of Court and Country

Excerpt: *It may be well very briefly to explain the relation in which the present work stands to a survey, not a history, of modern England undertaken by the same author some years ago. That earlier work was originally published by Messrs Cassell and Co. in two volumes. It was reprinted, first by them, secondly by Messrs Chapman and Hall, in a single volume. Into that re-issue of his England: Its People, Polity, and Pursuits (the labour of revision being much lightened by the obliging help of Mr Francis Drummond), the author introduced certain references to social or legislative changes effected since the original edition of the work appeared. Without organic disturbance of its plan, and risk of consequent confusion to the reader, it would have been impossible to bring down that book to the year, 1897.*