Selected Essays de Bury, J. B.[John Bagnell] - 1930

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930 Edited by Harold Temperley this is a postumous collection of essays by the distinguished classical scholar John Bagnell Bury, formerly Professor at Trinity College Dublin and later at Cambridge University. This volume includes the transcript of his inaugural address at Cambridge on "The Science of History" in which he famously defined the role of an historian thus : "I may remind you that history is not a branch of literature. The facts of history, like the facts of geology or astronomy, can supply material for literary art; for manifest reasons they lend themselves to artistic representation far more readily than those of the natural sciences; but to clothe the story of human society in a literary dress is no more the part of a historian as a historian, than it is the part of an astronomer as an astronomer to present in an artistic shape the story of the stars." The essays range in topic from Greek through Roman and Byzantine periods. 249p. frontis. Some slight wear to covers. Bookplate of previous owner bookseller ticket inside front cover.. 1st UK Edition.. Hardcover. Very Good/No Jacket.