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PREFACE
The main criticism of my England and the English was
that it was rather too difficult for less advanced
students, and there were several requests for an easier
book leading up to it. In response to these, my
publishers asked me to prepare a volume on similar
lines, simpler—but not childish—and keeping, if possible,
the same preponderance of modern writers and the same
high literary quality in the extracts that had been a
feature of the earlier book. There, of course, was the
chief difficulty. There is plenty of material that is
good and plenty that is easy; but the good is rarely
easy and the easy is rarely good.
It is hoped, however, that a solution has been found
in Brighter English. The names of such contributors as
John Galsworthy, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, J. B.
Priestley, Lord Dunsany, Aldous Huxley, Robert Lynd,
Alfred Noyes, Ivor Brown, and Gilbert Frankau bear
sufficient testimony to the excellence and modernity of
the material. The difficulties inherent in the work of
first-class writers has been tackled in two ways ; in the
first place, by very careful annotation 1 at the foot of
each page, where as far as possible every word, unusual
idiom, colloquialism, or allusion that seemed likely to
cause difficulty has been explained; in the second place,
by choosing only such short stories, poems, plays,
essays, or conversations as were in themselves interesting.
They are so varied in subject and style that there is
provision for every taste, but the essential test on which
their inclusion depended was " are they interesting ?"
The short biographies or critical appreciations that
precede the contributions of most of the authors will
perhaps help to arouse or increase this interest.
1 In this I found A New Method English Dictionary, by Michael West
(Longmans), of great assistance, and recommend it wholeheartedly.
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