Excerpt from The Highway of Letters and Its Echoes of Famous Footsteps In these days of ruthless removal of ancient landmarks, we never know for how long any locality may be spared to us. In London, at any rate, objects which to-day are so familiar to the wayfarer in the streets that he is ready to regard them as monuments, will to-morrow have disappeared, and he will be left idly gaping at an empty space, which gapes at him in return. The demolition of the remnant of some ancient houses in Fleet Street not unnaturally suggested that the street itself - latterly, with architectural attractions except for some large and imposing piles of buildings here and there, incongruously breaking the sordid monotony of the shabby shops and houses - has been, since the first makers of English traversed it, "The Highway of Letters." It therefore seemed fitting that some kind of memorial should be written concerning it in that aspect. The present volume does not, it, is almost needless to say, profess to be more than a gossipy reference to people and achievements which characterise the story of Fleet Street in its relation to tho growth of literature and to changes in social and political aspects at various periods. 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.

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