Information about the author of the book "A Literary History of Persia", available below, is provided here. This may help readers to better evaluate the contents of the book. 

"Edward Granville Browne, FBA (7 February 1862 – 5 January 1926) was a British Iranologist. He published numerous articles and books, mainly in the areas of history and literature.

Browne was born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, England, the son of civil engineer Benjamin Chapman Browne and his wife, Annie. He was educated at Trinity College, Glenalmond, Burnside's School in Berkshire, Eton College, and the Newcastle College of Physical Science. He then read natural sciences at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He also studied Arabic with Edward Henry Palmer and William Wright, Persian with Edward Byles Cowell, and Turkish with Sir James Redhouse, motivated by an interest in the Turkish people. After graduating in 1882 he travelled to Constantinople.

Browne then spent a further two years at University of Cambridge studying the languages of India (defined then as Hindustani, Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic) and also gained an M.B. in London. In 1887 he was made a Fellow of Pembroke, and then paid an extended visit to Iran. He returned to become university lecturer in Persian. In April 1902 he was elected Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge. Browne was mainly responsible for the creation at Cambridge of a school of living languages of Asia, in connection with the training of candidates for the Egyptian and Sudanese civil services, and the Lebanese consular service. He was on his sixtieth birthday the recipient of a large Festschrift.

Browne published in areas which few other Western scholars had explored. Many of his publications are related to Iran, either in the fields of history or Persian literature. He is perhaps best known for his documentation and historical narratives of Bábism as relayed by Arthur de Gobineau. He published two translations of Bábí histories, and wrote several of the few Western accounts of early Bábí and Baháʼí history.

Among Iranians, Browne is well remembered today. A street named after him in Tehran, as well as his statue, remained even after the Iranian Revolution in 1979."

           (from Wikipedia)

A Literary History of Persia From the Earliest Times until Firdawsi     (file size: about 13 MB)

A Literary History of Persia From Firdawsi to Sa'di      (file size: about 30 MB)