Excerpt from Joan of Arc: The English Mail Coach This volume of selections is not to be regarded as a contribution to the study of English literature in general, or of De Quincey in particular. Its aim is more modest on the one hand, to interest the student and thereby engage him to make further acquaintance with the author for himself; on the other, to guide him to a better appreciation of prose style. The very brief statement of the salient points in De Quincey's life and character will be found adequate, I trust, for general needs. Whoever wishes to go more deeply into the subject must consult the works cited at p. V. I take the liberty of doubting whether we shall ever get the facts of De Quincey's life more precisely or much more fully than we now have them. His innate shyness, intensified by the opium habit with its attendant vagrancy, has succeeded in envelop ing most of the details in an atmosphere of mystery. The remarks upon De Quincey's style are to be used in connection with Professor Minto's treatise. His treatment of the subject is too condensed to be abridged, and too good to be merely pillaged. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.