A HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES FROM THE DIAMOND JUBILEE, 1897 TO THE ACCESSION OF KING EDWARD VII. BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY AUTHOR OF " A HISTORY OF THE FOUR GEORGES" ETC. NW, 22-1905 3478 PREFACE THESE two concluding volumes' of A History of Our Own Times have for their object in the first instance to give a clear and comprehensive account of all the events of public importance occurring in or to the British Empire during the years between Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and the Accession of King Edward the Seventh. But, besides this obvious object, the volumes include a retrospect of the important changes which the reign of Queen Victoria saw in the public life, the literature, art, and science-more especially the applied science of that period, the changes which have come about in the habits. and the manners of the time; and also the leading characteristics of the men and women who have grown into celebrity during these later years. The reader will thus, it is hoped, be enabled all the better to appreciate the place which these more recent years are destined to hold in the world's history, and to estimate the progress made in political, artistic, scientific, and social life during the whole of that long period which passed between the coronation of Queen Victoria and the coronation of King Edward the Seventh. The author's intention and endeavor are to make these two closing volumes, like those which went before them, not merely a record of events and dates, but a survey of life and of social progress. 1 Volumes IV. and V. |