One of the best ways to _know_ words is through seeing them used by
the masters. For this reason, as well as for many others, you should read
extensively in good literature. The following lists of prose works may
prove useful for your guidance. They are not intended to be exclusive, not
intended to designate "the hundred best books." Rather do they name some
good books of fairly varied types. These are not all of equal merit, even
in their use of words. Some use words with nice discrimination, some with
splendid vividness and force. For each author only one or two books are
named, but in many instances you will wish to read further in the author,
perhaps indeed his entire works.
<Biography and Autobiography>
Boswell, James: _Life of Samuel Johnson_
Bradford, Gamaliel: _Lee the American; American Portraits, 1875-1900_
Franklin, Benjamin: _Autobiography_
Grant, U. S.: _Personal Memoirs_
Irving, Washington: _Life of Goldsmith_
Paine, A. B.: _Life of Mark Twain_
Walton, Izaak: _Lives_
<Essays, Adventure, etc.>
Addison, Joseph: _Spectator Papers_
Bryce, Sir James: _The American Commonwealth_
Burke, Edmund: _Speech on Conciliation_
Burroughs, John: _Wake Robin_
Chesterton, G. K.: _Heretics_
Crothers, S. M.: _The Gentle Reader_
Dana, R. H., Jr.: Two _Years Before the Mast_
Darwin, Charles: _Origin of Species_
Emerson, R. W.: _Essays_
Irving, Washington: _Sketch Book_
Lincoln, Abraham: _Speeches and Addresses_
Lucas, E. V.: _Old Lamps for New_
Macaulay, T. B.: _Essays_
Muir, John: _The Mountains of California_
Thoreau, H. D.: _Walden_
Twain, Mark: _Life on the Mississippi_
<Fiction>
Allen, James Lane: _The Choir Invisible_
Austen, Jane: _Pride and Prejudice_
Barrie, Sir James M.: _Sentimental Tommie_
Bennett, Arnold: _The Old Wives' Tale_
Blackmore, R. D.: _Lorna Doone_
Bunyan, John: _Pilgrim's Progress_
Cable, G. W.: _Old Creole Days_
Conrad, Joseph: _The Nigger of the Narcissus_
Defoe, Daniel: _Robinson Crusoe_
Dickens, Charles: _David Copperfield_
Eliot, George: _Adam Bede_
Galsworthy, John: _The Patrician_
Goldsmith, Oliver: _The Vicar of Wakefield_
Hardy, Thomas: _The Return of the Native_
Harte, Bret: _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ (short story)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: _The Scarlet Letter_
Hergesheimer, Joseph: _Java Head_
Hudson, W. H.: _Green Mansions_
Kingsley, Charles: _Westward Ho_!
Kipling, Rudyard: _Plain Tales from the Hills_ (short stories)
London, Jack: _The Call of the Wild_
Merrick, Leonard: _The Man Who Understood Women (volume of short
stories); _The Actor Manager_
Mitchell, S. Weir: _Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker_
Norris, Frank: _The Octopus_
Poe, Edgar Allan: _The Fall of the House of Usher_ (short story)
Poole, Ernest: _The Harbor_
Scott, Sir Walter: _Ivanhoe_
Smith, F. Hopkinson: _Colonel Carter of Cartersville_
Stevenson, R. L.: _Treasure Island_
Tarkington, Booth: _Monsieur Beaucaire_
Thackeray, W. M.: _Vanity Fair_
Twain, Mark: _Huckleberry Finn_
Wells, H. G.: _Tono Bungay_
Wharton, Edith: _Ethan Frome_
Wister, Owen: _The Virginian_