The Glory of English Prose

Stephen Coleridge addresses his grandson Antony in a series of letters about English prose, treating literary taste as something learned through attentive reading. Antony has reached the sixth form at school, and his grandfather offers a guide to writers whose language he admires. The opening letters argue for simple words used precisely and compare the older Bible translation with a modern version to show how rhythm and balance affect a sentence.

The range extends from Raleigh and Bunyan to Johnson, Burke, Ruskin and Matthew Arnold, with speeches, diaries and literary passages among the examples. In the middle excerpt, Coleridge considers Walter Savage Landor's account of Rhodope and her father, then turns to a dream in which Sleep and Love dispute their powers. Readers interested in prose style will find examples to weigh alongside Coleridge's strongly expressed judgments, presented through the personal voice of an older relative teaching a younger reader.