In 1911 H. A. L. Fisher, a former President of the British Academy and the Board of Education, was in search of someone to write a short one-volume survey of French literature. Fisher had read one of Strachey's reviews ("Two Frenchmen," Independent Review (1903)) and asked him to write an outline in 50,000 words, giving him J. W. Mackail's Latin Literature (1909) as a model. Landmarks in French Literature, dedicated to "J[ane] M[aria] S[trachey]," his mother, was published on 12 January 1912. Despite almost a full column of praise in The Times Literary Supplement of 1 February and sales that by April 1914 had reached nearly 12,000 copies in the British Empire and America, the book brought Strachey neither the fame he craved nor the money he badly needed.
In 1911 H. A. L. Fisher, a former President of the British Academy and the Board of Education, was in search of someone to write a short one-volume survey of French literature. Fisher had read one of Strachey's reviews ("Two Frenchmen," Independent Review (1903)) and asked him to write an outline in 50,000 words, giving him J. W Mackail's Latin Literature (1909) as a model. Landmarks in French Literature, dedicated to "J[ane] M[aria] S[trachey]," his mother, was published on 12 January 1912. Despite almost a full column of praise in The Times Literary Supplement of 1 February and sales that by April 1914 had reached nearly 12,000 copies in the British Empire and America, the book brought Strachey neither the fame he craved nor the money he badly needed.