{"date":"April 21","id":"04-21","intro":["Through the pages of a book the reader sees the life of past days. Carnivals, processions, battles, coronations, voyages—the whole history of the world and its people is revealed in a stupendous pageant. Taine was a Frenchman who wrote an unsurpassed history of English literature; its introduction reveals the unusual combination of an imaginative and an analytical style."],"minutes":18,"readings":[{"author":"Hippolyte Taine","end":418,"start":410,"volume":39,"work":"Introduction to English Literature"}],"slug":"april-21","status":"proofread","title":"Books as Windows to the Past","url":"/harvard-classics/april-21/","words":3617}