AN ENGLISH LIBRARY: PERIOD I
[For much counsel and correction in the matter of editions and prices
I am indebted to my old and valued friend, Charles Young, head of the
firm of Lamley & Co., booksellers, South Kensington.]
For the purposes of book-buying, I divide English literature, not
strictly into historical epochs, but into three periods which,
while scarcely arbitrary from the historical point of view, have
nevertheless been calculated according to the space which they will
occupy on the shelves and to the demands which they will make on the
purse:
I. From the beginning to John Dryden, or roughly, to the end of the
seventeenth century.
II. From William Congreve to Jane Austen, or roughly, the eighteenth
century.
III. From Sir Walter Scott to the last deceased author who is
recognised as a classic, or roughly, the nineteenth century.
Period III. will bulk the largest and cost the most; not necessarily
because it contains more absolutely great books than the other periods
(though in my opinion it _does_), but because it is nearest to us, and
therefore fullest of interest for us.
I have not confined my choice to books of purely literary
interest--that is to say, to works which are primarily works of
literary art. Literature is the vehicle of philosophy, science,
morals, religion, and history; and a library which aspires to be
complete must comprise, in addition to imaginative works, all these
branches of intellectual activity. Comprising all these branches, it
cannot avoid comprising works of which the purely literary interest is
almost nil.
On the other hand, I have excluded from consideration:--
i. Works whose sole importance is that they form a link in the chain
of development. For example, nearly all the productions of authors
between Chaucer and the beginning of the Elizabethan period, such as
Gower, Hoccleve, and Skelton, whose works, for sufficient reason, are
read only by professors and students who mean to be professors.
ii. Works not originally written in English, such as the works of
that very great philosopher Roger Bacon, of whom this isle ought to be
prouder than it is. To this rule, however, I have been constrained
to make a few exceptions. Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_ was written
in Latin, but one does not easily conceive a library to be complete
without it. And could one exclude Sir Isaac Newton's _Principia_, the
masterpiece of the greatest physicist that the world has ever
seen? The law of gravity ought to have, and does have, a powerful
sentimental interest for us.
iii. Translations from foreign literature into English.
Here, then, are the lists for the first period:
PROSE WRITERS £ s. d.
Bede, _Ecclesiastical History_: Temple
Classics. 0 1 6
Sir Thomas Malory, _Morte d'Arthur_:
Everyman's Library (4 vols.) 0 4 0
Sir Thomas More, _Utopia_: Scott Library 0 1 0
George Cavendish, _Life of Cardinal
Wolsey_: New Universal Library. 0 1 0
Richard Hakluyt, _Voyages_: Everyman's
Library (8 vols.) 0 8 0
Richard Hooker, _Ecclesiastical Polity_:
Everyman's Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0
Francis Bacon, _Works_: Newnes's Thinpaper
Classics. 0 2 0
Thomas Dekker, _Gull's Horn-Book_: King's
Classics. 0 1 6
Lord Herbert of Cherbury, _Autobiography_:
Scott Library. 0 1 0
John Selden, _Table-Talk_: New Universal
Library. 0 1 0
Thomas Hobbes, _Leviathan_: New Universal
Library. 0 1 0
James Howell, _Familiar Letters_: Temple
Classics (3 vols.) 0 4 6
Sir Thomas Browne, _Religio Medici_, etc.:
Everyman's Library. 0 1 0
Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Living and Holy
Dying_: Temple Classics (3 vols.) 0 4 6
Izaak Walton, _Compleat Angler_: Everyman's
Library. 0 1 0
John Bunyan, _Pilgrim's Progress_:
World's Classics. 0 1 0
Sir William Temple, _Essay on Gardens
of Epicurus_: King's Classics. 0 1 6
John Evelyn, _Diary_: Everyman's
Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0
Samuel Pepys, _Diary_: Everyman's
Library (2 vols.) 0 2 0
_________
£2 1 6
The principal omission from the above list is _The Paston Letters_,
which I should probably have included had the enterprise of publishers
been sufficient to put an edition on the market at a cheap price.
Other omissions include the works of Caxton and Wyclif, and such
books as Camden's _Britannia_, Ascham's _Schoolmaster_, and Fuller's
_Worthies_, whose lack of first-rate value as literature is not
adequately compensated by their historical interest. As to the Bible,
in the first place it is a translation, and in the second I assume
that you already possess a copy.
POETS £ s. d.
_Beowulf_, Routledge's London Library 0 2 6
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, _Works_: Globe
Edition 0 3 6
Nicolas Udall, _Ralph Roister-Doister_:
Temple Dramatists 0 1 0
EDMUND SPENSER, _Works_: Globe Edition 0 3 6
Thomas Lodge, _Rosalynde_: Caxton Series 0 1 0
Robert Greene, _Tragical Reign of Selimus_:
Temple Dramatists 0 1 0
Michael Drayton, _Poems_: Newnes's Pocket
Classics 0 8 6
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, _Works_: New Universal
Library 0 1 0
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, _Works_: Globe
Edition 0 3 6
Thomas Campion, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0
Ben Jonson, _Plays_: Canterbury Poets 0 1 0
John Donne, _Poems_: Muses' Library
(2 vols.) 0 2 0
John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, _Plays_:
Mermaid Series 0 2 6
Philip Massinger, _Plays_: Cunningham
Edition 0 3 6
Beaumont and Fletcher, _Plays_: a Selection
Canterbury Poets 0 1 0
John Ford, _Plays_: Mermaid Series 0 2 6
George Herbert, _The Temple_: Everyman's
Library 0 1 0
ROBERT HERRICK, _Poems_: Muses' Library
(2 vols.) 0 2 0
Edmund Waller, _Poems_: Muses' Library
(2 vols.) 0 2 0
Sir John Suckling, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0
Abraham Cowley, _English Poems_: Cambridge
University Press 0 4 6
Richard Crashaw, _Poems_: Muses' Library 0 1 0
Henry Vaughan, _Poems_: Methuen's
Little Library 0 1 6
Samuel Butler, _Hudibras_: Cambridge
University Press 0 4 6
JOHN MILTON, _Poetical Works_: Oxford
Cheap Edition 0 2 0
JOHN MILTON, _Select Prose Works_: Scott
Library 0 1 0
Andrew Marvell, _Poems_: Methuen's Little
Library 0 1 6
John Dryden, _Poetical Works_: Globe
Edition 0 3 6
[Thomas Percy], _Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry_: Everyman's Library
(2 vols.) 0 2 0
Arber's _"Spenser" Anthology_: Oxford
University Press 0 2 0
Arber's _"Jonson" Anthology_: Oxford
University Press 0 2 0
Arber's _"Shakspere" Anthology_: Oxford
University Press 0 2 0
_________
£3 7 6
There were a number of brilliant minor writers in the seventeenth
century whose best work, often trifling in bulk, either scarcely
merits the acquisition of a separate volume for each author, or cannot
be obtained at all in a modern edition. Such authors, however, may not
be utterly neglected in the formation of a library. It is to meet this
difficulty that I have included the last three volumes on the above
list. Professor Arber's anthologies are full of rare pieces, and
comprise admirable specimens of the verse of Samuel Daniel, Giles
Fletcher, Countess of Pembroke, James I., George Peele, Sir Walter
Raleigh, Thomas Sackville, Sir Philip Sidney, Drummond of Hawthornden,
Thomas Heywood, George Wither, Sir Henry Wotton, Sir William Davenant,
Thomas Randolph, Frances Quarles, James Shirley, and other greater and
lesser poets.
I have included all the important Elizabethan dramatists except John
Marston, all the editions of whose works, according to my researches,
are out of print.
In the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods talent was so extraordinarily
plentiful that the standard of excellence is quite properly raised,
and certain authors are thus relegated to the third, or excluded,
class who in a less fertile period would have counted as at least
second-class.
SUMMARY OF THE FIRST PERIOD. £ s. d.
19 prose authors in 36 volumes costing 2 1 6
29 poets in 36 " " 3 7 6
__ __ _________
48 72 £5 9 0
In addition, scores of authors of genuine interest are represented in
the anthologies.
The prices given are gross, and in many instances there is a 25
per cent. discount to come off. All the volumes can be procured
immediately at any bookseller's.