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THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS
A KEY TO THE TREASURES OF LITERATURE
BY
FRANK PARSONS
THIRD EDITION
REVISED AND ENLARGED
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1893
_Copyright, 1889, 1891, 1893,_
BY FRANK PARSONS.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
At the request of the publishers the following statement is made as a
substitute for the former indefinite arrangement in respect to
authorship.
The plan and composition of the book were mine; the work of my
colleagues, F. E. Crawford and H. T. Richardson, consisting of
criticism, verifications, and assistance in gathering materials for the
appendix,--services of great value to me, and of which I wish to express
my high appreciation.
A few additions have been made in this edition, and the book has been
carefully revised throughout.
FRANK PARSONS.
BOSTON, January, 1893.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The public and the critics have met us with a welcome far more cordial
than we had dared to expect, though not more so, of course, than we
hoped for. When did a thing such as that ever happen? We are glad to
discover that in forming our expectations we underrated their
discernment, or our own merit (probably not the latter, judging by the
remarks of two or three of our critics), and in real earnest we are
grateful for their high appreciation of our work.
Some few--a very few--have found fault with us, and our thanks are due
to them also; for honest, kindly, intelligent criticism is one of the
most powerful means of growth. The fact that this little volume is not
intended as an _infallible_ guide, or as anything more than a _stimulus_
to seek the best, and a _suggestion_ of the method of guiding one's self
and one's children, has been missed by some, though it appears
distinctly in various places through the book, and is involved in what
we deem the most useful part of our work,--the remarks following Table
V., wherein we endeavor to show the student how he may learn to estimate
the value of a book for himself. So far were we from wishing to _decide_
matters which manifestly vary with the wants and capacities of each
individual, that we emphatically advised the reader not to accept the
opinions of any one as final, but to form his own judgments.
Some have failed to perceive that, _in ranking the books, we have
considered, not merely their intrinsic merit, but also the needs and
abilities of the average English reader_, making a compound test by
which to judge, not the relative greatness of the books simply, but
their relative claims on the attention of the ordinary reader. This also
was set forth, as we thought, quite distinctly, and was in fact
understood by nearly every one, but not by all, for some have objected
to the order of the books in Table I., affirming, for example, that the
"Federalist" and Bryce's "American Commonwealth" are far _superior_ to
"Our Country," and should be placed above it. That would be true if
intrinsic greatness alone decided the matter. But the average reader
with his needs and abilities is a factor in the problem, as well as the
book with its subject and style. Now, the ordinary reader's time and his
mental power are both limited. "Our Country" is briefer and simpler than
the others, and its contents are of vital interest to every American, of
even more vital interest than the discussions of the "Federalist" or
Bryce; and so, although as a work of art it is inferior to these, it
must rank above them in this book, because of its superior claims upon
the attention of the average reader. In a similar manner other questions
of precedence are determined on the principles contained in the remarks
on Table V. It is not pretended, however, that the arrangement is
perfect even in respect to our own tests, especially among the authors
on the second shelf of Table I. The difficulties of making a true list
may be illustrated by the fact that one critic of much ability affirms
that Marietta Holley ought to head the tenth column, as the best
humorist of all time; another says it is absurd to place her above the
Roman wits Juvenal and Lucian; and a third declares with equal
positiveness that she ought not to appear in the list at all. We differ
from them all, and think the high place we have given Miss Holley is
very near the truth.
Communications have been received from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Marietta
Holley, Senator Hoar, Phillips Brooks, Bishop J. H. Vincent, Brooke
Herford, Francis Parkman, ex-Gov. John D. Long, Gen. Benj. F. Butler, T.
W. Higginson, and many other eminent persons, bringing to us a number of
suggestions, most of which we have adopted to the great advantage of our
book, as we hope and believe.
We have added a number of valuable works to the lists of the first
edition, and have written a new chapter on the guidance of children, the
means of training them to good habits of reading, and the books best
adapted to boys and girls of various ages.
If any one, on noting some of the changes that have been made in this
edition, feels inclined to raise the cry of inconsistency, we ask him to
remember the declaration of Wendell Phillips, that "Inconsistency is
Progress." There is room for still further inconsistency, we do not
doubt; and criticism or suggestion will be gladly received.
FRANK PARSONS.
BOSTON, January, 1891.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
Purposes of the book briefly stated
System in reading
Purposes of reading
Its influence on health and mind
on character
on beauty and accomplishments
Its pleasures
Quantity and quality of reading
Selection of books
Order of reading
Method of reading
Importance of owning the books you read
Effect of bad books
useless books
good books
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS WORK
NOTE OF EXPLANATION
THE FIRST TWO SHELVES OF THE WORLD'S LIBRARY
(TABLE.)
REMARKS ON TABLE I.
Religion and Morals
Poetry and the Drama
Science
Biography
History
Philosophy
Essays
Fiction
Oratory
Wit and Humor
Fables and Fairy Tales
Travel
Guides
Miscellaneous
GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT FIELDS OF THOUGHT,
Arranged for the purpose of securing breadth of
mind (Table II.)
A SERIES OF BRIEF BUT VERY CHOICE SELECTIONS
from general literature, constituting a year's
course for the formation of a true literary taste
(Table III.)
Groups I. and II., Poetry
Group III., Prose
Group IV., Wit and Humor
A SHORT COURSE SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE LAST
(Table IV.)
WHAT TO GIVE THE CHILDREN
SPECIAL STUDIES
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORLD'S GREAT AUTHORS
in time and space, with a parallel column of contemporaneous
noted historic events (Table V.)
REMARKS ON TABLE V.
Definitions and divisions
Eight tests for the choice of books
Intrinsic merit
Periods of English Literature
The Pre-Shakspearian age
The Shakspearian age
The Post-Shakspearian age
Time of Milton
Dryden
Pope
The novelists, historians, and scientists
The greatest names of other literatures:--
Greece, Rome, Italy, France, Spain, Germany,
Persia, Portugal, Denmark, Russia
The fountains of national literatures:--
Homer, Nibelungenlied, Cid, Chansons, Morte
D'Arthur, etc.
APPENDIX I.
THE BEST THOUGHTS OF GREAT MEN ABOUT
BOOKS AND READING
APPENDIX II.
BOOKS USED IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
AS SUPPLEMENTARY READING, TEXT-BOOKS,
etc.
THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
This book is the result of much reading and thought, teaching,
lecturing, and conversation, in the direction of its subject-matter. Its
purpose is fivefold: _First_, to call attention to the importance of
reading the best literature to the exclusion of all that is inferior, by
setting forth the benefits that may be derived from the former and the
injuries that are sure to result from the latter. _Second_, to select
the best things from all the literatures of the world; to make a survey
of the whole field of literature and locate the mines most worthy of our
effort, where with the smallest amount of digging we may find the
richest ore; and to do this with far greater precision, definiteness,
and detail than it has ever been done before. _Third_, to place the
great names of the world's literature in their proper relations
of time and space to each other and to the great events of
history,--accompanying the picture with a few remarks about the several
periods of English Literature and the Golden Age of literature in each
of the great nations. _Fourth_, to discuss briefly the best methods of
reading, and the importance of system, quantity, quality, due
proportion, and thoroughness in reading, and of the ownership of books
and the order in which they should be read. _Fifth_, to gather into a
shining group, like a constellation of stars, the splendid thoughts of
the greatest men upon these subjects.
The book is meant to be a practical handbook of universal literature for
the use of students, business men, teachers, and any other persons who
direct the reading of others, and for the guidance of scholars in
departments other than their own.
1. =System= in reading is of as much importance as it is in the business
of a bank or any other mercantile pursuit.
2. =The Purposes of Reading= should ever be kept in mind. They are
the purposes of life; namely, health, mental power, character, beauty,
accomplishments, pleasure, and the knowledge which will be of use in
relation to our business, domestic life, and citizenship. Literature can
aid the _health_, indirectly, by imparting a knowledge of the means of
its attainment and preservation (as in works on physiology and hygiene);
and directly, by supplying that exercise of the mind which is essential
to the balance of the functions necessary to perfect health. A study of
literature will develop the _mind_--the perception, memory, reason
(especially true of science and philosophy), and the imagination
(especially the study of poetry and science)--directly, by exercising
those all-important faculties; and indirectly, by yielding a knowledge
of the conditions of their existence and strength. On the other hand,
the mind may be greatly injured, if not wholly destroyed, by pouring
into it a flood of filth and nonsense; or by a torrent of even the best
in literature, so rapid and long continued that it cannot be properly
absorbed and digested. The evil effects of cramming the mind are only
too often seen about us.
Literature can build or destroy the _character_ both directly and
indirectly. Poetry, religion, philosophy, fiction, biography,
history,--indeed, all sorts of writings in some degree make us more
sympathetic, loving, tender, noble, generous, kind, and just, or the
opposite, by the simple power of exercise, if for no other reason. If we
freely exercise the muscles of the arm, we shall have more vigor there.
If we continually love, our power and tendency to love will grow. The
poet's passion, passing the gates of the eye and ear into our souls,
rouses our sympathies to kindred states of feeling. We love when he
loves, and weep when he weeps; and all the while he is moulding our
characters, taking from or adding to the very substance of our souls.
Brave words change the coward to a hero; a coward's cry chills the
bravest heart. A boy who reads of crime and bravery sadly mixed by some
foul traitor to the race, soon thinks that to be brave and grand he must
be coarse and have the blood of villainy and rashness pulsing from his
misled heart. Not all the books that picture vice are harmful. If they
show it in its truth, they drive us from it by its very loathsomeness;
but if they gild it and plume it with pleasure and power, beware.
Literature, too, can give us a knowledge of the means for the
development of character, and the inspiration to make the best use of
these means. Books of morals, religion, biography, science, poetry, and
fiction especially hold these treasures.
In the attainment and enrichment of _beauty_, literature has a work to
do. The choicest beauty is the loveliness of soul that lights the eye
and prints its virtue in the face; and as our reading moulds the mind
and heart to beauty, their servants at the doorways ever bend to their
instructions and put on the livery of their lords. Even that beauty
which is of the rounded form, the soft cheek's blooming tinge, the rosy
mouth, and pearly lip, owes its debt to health; and that, as has been
seen, may profit much by literature. And beyond all this we learn the
means of great improvement in our comeliness,--how crooked may be
changed to straight, and hollow cheeks to oval; frowns to smiles, and
lean or gross to plump; ill-fitting, ill-adapted dress to beautiful
attire; a shambling gait to a well-conducted walk,--and even the stupid
stare of ignorance be turned to angel glances of indwelling power and
interested comprehension.
_Accomplishments_, too, find help in written works of genius, not merely
as affording a record of the best methods of acquiring any given art,
but directly as supplying the substance of some of the greatest of all
accomplishments,--those of inspiring eloquent conversation, and of
writing clear and beautiful English.
_Pleasure_ manifestly is, by all these aids to beauty, health, and
power, much beholden to the books we read; but more than this, the very
reading of a worthy book is a delicious joy, and one that does not drain
but fills the fount from which the happiness of others comes. Plato,
Fenelon, Gibbon, and a host of others name the love of books the
chiefest charm and glory of their lives.
3. =The Quantity and Quality= of what we read should have our careful
thought. Whoever lives on literary husks and intoxicants, when corn and
wheat and milk are just as easily within his reach, is certainly no
wiser than one who treats his physical receptacle in the same way, and
will as surely suffer from ill feeding in diminished vital force.
Indeed, he may be glad if he escapes acquiring intellectual dyspepsia or
spiritual delirium tremens. Even of the best of reading there may be too
much as well as not enough. More than we can assimilate is waste of time
and energy. Besides the regulation of the _total_ quantity we read, with
reference to our powers of digestion, we must watch the _relative_
amounts of all the various kinds of literary sustenance we take. A due
proportion ought to be maintained by careful mixture of religious,
scientific, poetic, philosophic, humorous, and other reading. A man who
exercises but one small muscle all his days would violate the laws of
health and power. The greatest mind is that which comes the nearest to
attainment of a present perfect picture in the mind of all the universe,
past, present, and to come. The greatest character is that which gets
the greatest happiness for self through fullest and most powerful
activities for others, and requires for its own work, existence, and
delight, the least subtraction from the world's resources of enjoyment.
The greatest man is he who combines in due proportion and completest
harmony the fullest physical, emotional, and intellectual life.
4. =The Selection= of books is of the utmost importance, in view of
their influence upon character. All the reasons for care that apply to
the choice of friends among the living, have equal force in reference to
the dead. The same tests avail in one case as in the other,--reputation
and personal observation of the words and deeds of those we think to
make companions. We may at will and at slight cost have all the great
and noble for our intimate friends and daily guests, who will come when
we call, answer the questions we put, and go when we wish. And better
yet, however long we talk to them, no other friends will be kept waiting
in the anterooms, longing to take our place. Our most engrossing
friendship, though we keep them _always_ with us, will produce no
interference with their equal friendship with all the world besides. We
may associate with angels and become angelic, or with demons and become
satanic.
Besides the difference in the nature of books, the very number of them
commands a choice. In one library there are three million volumes; in
the Boston Public Library about three hundred thousand, or five hundred
thousand including pamphlets. In your short life you can read but a
trifling part of the world's literature. Suppose you are fortunate
enough to be able to read one book a week, in thirty years you would
read but fifteen hundred books. Use, then, every care to get the best.
If it were in your equal choice to go to one of two reputed
entertainments and but one, it surely would be worth your while to know
their character before selecting. One might be Beethoven's loveliest
symphony, the other but a minstrel show.
5. =The Order of our Reading= must be carefully attended to. The very
best books are not always to be first read. If the reader is young or of
little culture, the _simplicity_ of the writing must be taken into
account, for it is of no use to read a book that cannot be understood.
One of mature and cultivated mind who begins a course of systematic
reading may follow the order of absolute value; but a child must be
supplied with easy books in each department, and, as his powers develop,
with works of increasing difficulty, until he is able to grasp the most
complex and abstruse. If you take up a book that is recommended to you
as one of the world's best, and find it uninteresting, be sure the
trouble is in you. Do not reject it utterly, do not tell people you do
not like it; wait a few months or years, then try it again, and it may
become to you one of the most precious of books.
6. =The Method= of your reading is an important factor in determining
its value to you. It is in proportion to your _conquest_ of what is
worthy in literature that you gain. If you pour it into your mind so
fast that each succeeding wave forces the former out before its form and
color have been fixed, you are not better off, but rather worse, because
the process washes out the power of memory. Memory depends on health,
attention, repetition, reflection, association of ideas, and practice.
Some books should be very carefully read, looking to both thought and
form; the best passages should be marked and marginal notes made;
reflection should digest the best ideas, until they become a part of the
tissue of your own thought; and the most beautiful and striking
expressions should be verbally committed. If you saw a diamond in the
sand, surely you would fix it where it might adorn your person. If you
find a sparkling jewel in your reading, fix it in your heart and let it
beautify your conversation. Shakspeare, Milton, Homer, Bacon, AEschylus,
and Emerson, and nearly all the selections in Table III. should be read
in this way. Other books have value principally by reason of the line of
thought or argument of which the whole book is an expression; such for
the most part are books of history, science, and philosophy. While
reading them marks or notes should be made; so that when the book is
finished, the steps of thought may several times be rapidly retraced,
until the force and meaning of the book becomes your own forever. Still
other books may be simply glanced through, it being sufficient for the
purposes of the general reader to have an idea of the nature of their
contents, so that he may know what he can find in them if he has need.
Such books to us are the Koran, the works of the lesser essayists,
orators, and philosophers. Ruskin says that no book should be read fast;
but it would be as sensible to say that we should never walk or ride
fast over a comparatively uninteresting country. Adaptation of method to
the work in hand is the true rule. We should not read "Robert Elsmere"
as slowly and carefully as Shakspeare. As the importance of the book
diminishes, the speed of our journey through it ought to increase.
Otherwise we give an inferior book equal attention with its superiors.
7. =Own the Books you Read,= if possible, so that you may mark them and
often refer to them. If you are able, buy the best editions, with the
fullest notes and finest binding,--the more beautiful, the better. A
lovely frame adds beauty to the picture. If you cannot buy the
best-dressed books, get those of modest form and good large type. If
pennies must be counted, get the catalogues of all the cheap libraries
that are multiplying so rapidly of late,--the Elzevir, Bohn, Morley,
Camelot, National, Cassel, Irving, Chandos, People's Library, World's
Library, etc.,--and own the books you learn to love. Use the public
libraries for reference, but do not rely on them for the standard
literature you read. It is better far to have an eight cent Bunyan,
twelve cent Bacon, or seven cent Hamlet within your reach from day to
day, and marked to suit yourself, than to read such books from the
library and have to take them back. That is giving up the rich
companionship of new-found friends as soon as gained. The difference
between talking with a sage or poet for a few brief moments once in your
lifetime, and having him daily with you as your friend and teacher is
the difference between the vales and summits of this life. The immense
importance of possessing the best books for your own cannot be too
strongly impressed upon you, nor the value of clothing your noble
friends as richly as you can. If they come to you with outward beauty,
they will claim more easily their proper share of your attention and
regard. Get an Elzevir Shakspeare if you can afford no other, but
purchase the splendid edition by Richard Grant White, if you can. Even
if you have to save on drink and smoke and pie-crust for the purpose,
you never will regret the barter.
8. =Bad Books= corrupt us as bad people do. Whenever they are made
companions, insensibly we learn to think and feel and talk and act as
they do in degree proportioned to the closeness that we hug them to our
hearts. Books may be bad, not only by imparting evil thoughts, awakening
lust and gilding vice, but by developing a false philosophy, ignoble
views of life, or errors in whatever parts of science or religion they
may touch. Avoid foul books as you would shun foul men, for fear you may
be like them; but seek the errors out and conquer them. Spend little
time in following a teacher you have tested and found false, but do the
testing for yourselves, and take no other person's judgment as to what
is truth or error. Truth is always growing; you may be the first to
catch the morning light. The friend who warns you of some book's untruth
may be himself in error, led by training, custom, or tradition, or
unclearly seeing in the darkness of his prejudice.
9. =Useless Books=. Many books that are not positively bad are yet mere
waste of time. A wise man will not spend the capital of his life, or
part with the wealth of his energies except he gets a fair equivalent.
He will demand the highest market price for his time, and will not give
his hours and moments--precious pieces of his life--for trash, when he
can buy with them the richest treasures of three thousand years of
thought. You have not time to drink the whole of human life from out the
many colored bottles of our literature; will you take the rich cream, or
cast that aside for the skimmed milk below, or turn it all out on the
pathway and swallow the dirt and the dregs in the bottom?
10. =Good Books=.--=A Short Sermon=.--If you are a scholar, professor or
lawyer, doctor or clergyman, do not stay locked in the narrow prison of
your own department, but go out into the world of thought and breathe
the air that comes from all the quarters of the globe. Read other books
than those that deal with your profession,--poetry, philosophy, and
travel. Get out of the valleys up on to the ridges, where you can see
what relation your home bears to the rest of the world. Go stand in the
clamor of tongues, that you may learn that the truth is broader than any
man's conception of it and become tolerant. Look at the standards that
other men use, and correct your own by them. Learn what other thinkers
and workers are doing, that you may appreciate them and aid them. Learn
the Past, that you may know the Future. Do not look out upon the world
through one small window; open all the doorways of your soul, let all
genius and beauty come in, that your life may be bright with their
glory.
If you are a busy merchant, artisan, or laborer, you too can give a
little time each day to books that are the best. If Plato, Homer,
Shakspeare, Tennyson, or Milton came to town to-day, you would not let
the busiest hour prevent your catching sight of him; you would stand a
half day on the street in the sun or the snow to catch but a glimpse of
the famous form; but how much better to receive his spirit in the heart
than only get his image on the eye! His choicest thought is yours for
the asking.
If you are a thoughtless boy or silly girl, trying the arts that win the
matrimonial prize, remember that there are no wings that fly so high as
those of sense and thought and inward beauty. Remember the old song that
ends,--
"Beauty vanish, wealth depart,
Wit has won the lady's heart."
Even as a preparation for a noble and successful courtship, the best
literature is an absolute necessity. Perhaps you cannot travel:
Humboldt, Cook, and Darwin, Livingstone, and Stanley will tell you more
than you could see if you should go where they have travelled. Perhaps
you cannot have the finest teachers in the studies you pursue: what a
splendid education one could get if he could learn philosophy with
Plato, Kant, and Spencer; astronomy with Galileo, Herschel, and Laplace;
mathematics with Newton or Leibniz; natural history with Cuvier or
Agassiz; botany with Gray; geology with Lyell or Dawson; history with
Bancroft; and poetry with Shakspeare, Milton, Dante, and Homer! Well,
those very teachers at their best are yours if you will read their
books. Each life is a mixture of white and black, no one is perfect; but
every worthy passage and ennobling thought you read adds to the white
and crowds out the black; and of what enormous import a few brief
moments daily spent with noble books may be, appears when we remember
that each act brings after it an infinite series of consequences. It is
an awe-inspiring truth to me that with the color of my thought I tinge
the stream of life to its remotest hour; that some poor brother far out
on the ocean of the future, struggling to breast the billows of
temptation, may by my hand be pulled beneath the waves, ruined by the
influences I put in action now; that, standing here, I make the depths
of all eternities to follow tremble to the music of my life: as Tennyson
has put it so beautifully in his "Bugle Song,"--
"Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
"O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
_Our echoes roll from soul to soul_,
_And grow for ever and for ever_."
How careful we should be of every moment if we had imaginative power
enough to fully realize the meaning of the truth that slightly differing
actions now may build results at last as wide apart as poles of opposite
eternities! Even idleness, the negative of goodness, would have no
welcome at our door. Some persons dream away two thirds of life, and
deem quiescence joy; but that is certainly a sad mistake. The nearer to
complete inaction we attain, the nearer we are clay and stone; the more
activity we gain, that does not draw from future power, the higher up
the cliffs of life we climb, and nearer to celestial life that never
sleeps. Let no hour go idly by that can be rendered rich and happy with
a glorious bit of Shakspeare, Dante, or Carlyle. Let us never be deluded
with the praise of peace, excepting that of heart and conscience clear
of all remorse. It is ambition that has climbed the heights, and will
through all the future. Give me not the dead and hopeless calm of
indolent contentment, but far rather the storm and the battle of life,
with the star of my hopes above me. Let me sail the central flow of the
stream, and travel the tides at the river's heart. I do not wish to stay
in any shady nook of quiet water, where the river's rushing current
never comes, and straws and bubbles lie at rest or slowly eddying round
and round at anchor in their mimic harbor. How often are we all like
these imprisoned straws, revolving listlessly within the narrow circle
of the daily duties of our lives, gaining no new truth, nor deeper love
or power or tenderness or joy, while all the world around is sweeping to
the sea! How often do we let the days and moments, with their wealth of
life, fly past us with their treasure! Youth lies in her loveliness,
dreaming in her drifting boat, and wakes to find her necklace has in
some way come unfast, and from the loosened ribbon trailing o'er the
rail the lustrous pearls have one by one been slipping far beyond her
reach in those deep waters over which her slumbers passed. Do not let
the pearls be lost. Do not let the moments pass you till they yield
their wealth and add their beauty to your lives.
11. =Abbreviations=.--
R. means, Read carefully.
D. means, Digest the best passages; make the thought and
feeling your own.
C. means, Commit passages in which valuable thought or feeling
is _exquisitely expressed_.
G. means, Grasp the idea of the whole book; that is, the train
of the author's thought, his conclusions, and the reasons for
them.
S. means, Swallow; that is, read as fast as you choose, it not
being worth while to do more than get a general impression of
the book.
T. means, Taste; that is, skip here and there, just to get an
idea of the book, and see if you wish to read more.
e. means _easy_; that is, of such character as to be within the
easy comprehension of one having no more than a grammar-school
education or its equivalent; and it applies to all books that
can be understood without either close attention or more than
an ordinary New England grammar-school training.
m. means _medium_; that is, of such character as to require the
close attention called "study," or a high-school education, or
both; and it applies to books the degree of whose difficulty
places them above the class e. and below the class _d_.
d. means _difficult_; that is, beyond the comprehension of an
ordinary person having only a New England high-school education
or its equivalent, even with close study, unless the reader
already has a fair understanding of the _subject_ of the book.
In order to read with advantage books that are marked _d._, the
mind should be prepared by special reading of simpler books in
the same department of thought.
TABLE I.
NOTE OF EXPLANATION.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's note: The original format of the table exceeded |
| the width requirements for e-text. Therefore the table was |
| reformatted. It is now from top to bottom in the order of |
| importance. The first shelf and second shelf are arranged |
| side by side. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
TABLE I. contains a list of authors whose books, on principle and
authority, have the strongest claims on the attention of the average
reader of English. They are arranged from left to right in the order of
importance of the divisions of the subject matter regarded as wholes,
and from above downward in the order of their value in relation to the
highest standard in their own department. The _numbers_ have nothing to
do with the ranking, but refer to notes that will be found on the pages
following the table. There is also, at the head of the notes relating to
each column of the table, a special note on the subject matter of that
column.
The upper part of the table represents the first shelf of the world's
library, and contains the books having the very strongest claims upon
the attention of all,--books with which every one should endeavor to
gain an acquaintance, at least _to the extent_ indicated in the notes.
The lower part of the table represents the second shelf of the world's
library, and contains books which in addition to those of the first
shelf should enter into a liberal education.
It must be always kept in mind that intrinsic merit alone does not
decide the position of a book in this table; for in order to test the
claim of a book upon the attention of a reader we have to consider not
only the artistic value of the author's work, and its subject matter,
but also the needs and abilities of the reader. Thus it happens that it
is not always the work of the greatest genius which stands highest in
the list. Moreover, no claim is made that the ranking is perfect,
especially on the second shelf. The table is an example of the
application of the principles set forth in the remarks following Table
V., to the case of the general reader. For every one above or below the
average reader the lists would have to be changed, and even the average
list has no quality of the absolute. It is but a suggestion,--a
suggestion, however, in which we have a good deal of confidence, one
that is based on a very wide induction,--and we have no hesitation in
affirming that the upper shelf represents the best literature the world
affords.
In addition to Table I., there will be found in Tables III. and IV., and
in the remarks upon the Guidance of Children following Table IV., a
number of pieces of literary work of the very highest merit and value.
Some of the most important are Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," one of
the very finest American poems; Browning's "Ivan Ivanovitch;" Guyot's
"Earth and Man;" Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature;" Burroughs'
"Pepacton," "Signs and Seasons," "Wake Robin," etc.; Buckley's "Fairy
Land of Science," etc.; Ragozin's "Chaldea;" Fenelon's "Lives of the
Philosophers;" Bolton's "Poor Boys who became Famous;" Rives' "Story of
Arnon;" Drake's "Culprit Fay;" Dr. Brown's "Rab and his Friends;" Mary
Mapes Dodge's "Hans Brinker;" Andrews' "Ten Boys on the Road;" Arnold's
"Sweetness and Light;" Higginson's "Vacations for Saints;" and General
Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out," a book of great power,
which sets forth the most practical method yet proposed for the
immediate relief of society from the burdens of pauperism and vice.
TABLE I.--THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS.
[See explanation on the preceding pages.]
(first shelf) (second shelf)
1. Religion & Morals.
Bible[1] Milton[11]
Bunyan[2] Keble[12]
Taylor[3] Cicero[13]
Kempis[4] Pascal[14]
Spencer[5] Channing[15]
M. Aurelius[6] Aristotle[16]
Plutarch[7] St. Augustine[17]
Seleca[8] Butler[18]
Epictetus[9] Spinoza[19]
Brooks[10]
Drummond[10]
2. Poetry & the Drama.
Shakspeare[20] Spenser[27]
Homer[21] Lowell[28]
Dante[22] Whittier[29]
Goethe[23] Tennyson[30]
Milton[24] Scott[32]
AEschylus[25] Byron[33]
Fragments[26] Shelley[34]
Keats[35]
Campbell[36]
Moore[37]
Thomson[38]
Macaulay[39]
Dryden[40]
Collins[41]
Ingelow[42]
Bryant[43]
Longfellow[44]
Herbert[45]
Goldsmith[46]
Coleridge[47]
Wordsworth[48]
Pope[49]
Southey[50]
Walton[51]
Browning[52]
Young[53]
Jonson[54]
Beaumont & F.[55]
Marlowe[56]
Sheridan[57]
Carleton[58]
Virgil[60]
Horace[61]
Lucretius[62]
Ovid[63]
Sophocles[64]
Euripides[65]
Aristophanes[66]
Pindar[67]
Hesiod[68]
Heine[69]
Schiller[70]
Corneille[71]
Racine[71]
Moliere[71]
Musset[74]
Calderon[75]
Petrarch[76]
Ariosto[77]
Tasso[78]
Camoens[79]
Omar[80]
Firdusi[81]
Hafiz[81]
Saadi[81]
Arnold[82]
Pushkin[83]
Lermontoff[84]
3. Science.
Physiology and Hygiene[85] De Tocqueville[99]
"Our Country"[86] Von Holst[100]
Federalist[88] Smith[101]
Bryce[89] Malthus[102]
Montesquieu[90] Carey[103]
Bagehot[90] Cairnes[104]
Mill[91] Freeman[105]
Bain[92] Jevons[106]
Spencer[93] Mulford[107]
Darwin[94] Hobbes[108]
Herschel[95] Machiavelli[109]
Proctor[95] Max Mueller[110]
Lyell[96] Trench[111]
Lubbock[96] Taylor[112]
Dawson[96] White[113]
Wood[97] Cuvier[114]
Whewell[98] Cook[115]
Tyndall[116]
Airy[117]
Faraday[118]
Helmholtz[119]
Huxley[120]
Gray[121]
Agassiz[122]
Silliman[123]
4. Biography.
Plutarch[124] G. Smith[139]
Phillips[125] Bourrienne[140]
Boswell[126] Johnson[141]
Lockhart[127] Walton[142]
Marshall[128] Stanley[143]
Franklin[128] Irving[144]
Nicolay & H.[129] Southey[145]
Grant[129] Stanhope[146]
Carlyle[130] Moore[147]
Renan[130] Jameson[148]
Farrar[131] Baring-Gould[149]
Emerson[132] Field[150]
[100] Greatest Men[133] Hamilton[151]
Parton[134] Darwin[151]
Hale[135] Alcott[151]
Drake[136] Talleyrand[151]
Fox[137] Macaulay[151]
Grimm[138] Bashkirtseff[151]
Guerin[151]
Jefferson[151]
American Statesmen[151]
English Men of Letters[151]
5. History.
Green[152] Creasy [155a]
Bancroft[153] Lecky[156]
Guizot[154] Clarke[157]
Buckle[154] Moffat[158]
Parkman[155] Draper[159]
Freeman[155] Hallam[160]
Fiske[155] May[161]
Fyffe[155] Hume[162]
Macaulay[163]
Froude[164]
Gibbon[165]
Grote[166]
Palfrey[167]
Prescott[168]
Motley[169]
Frothingham [169a]
Wilkinson[170]
Niebuhr[171]
Menzel[172]
Milman[173]
Ranke[174]
Sismondi[175]
Michelet[176]
Carlyle[177]
Thierry[178]
Tacitus[179]
Livy[180]
Sallust[181]
Herodotus[182]
Xenophon[183]
Thucydides[184]
Josephus[185]
Mackenzie[185]
Rawlinson[185]
6. Philosophy.
Spencer[186] Mill[192]
Plato[187] Mansel[193]
Berkeley[188] Buechner[194]
Kant[189] Edwards[195]
Locke & Hobbes[190] Bentham[196]
Comte[191] Maurice[197]
Lewes Hume[198]
or Ueberweg Hamilton[199]
or Schwegler Aristotle[200]
or Schlegel Descartes[201]
on the Cousin[201]
History of Hegel & Schelling[202]
Philosophy. Fichte[203]
Erasmus[204]
Fiske[205]
Hickok[206]
McCosh[207]
Spinoza[208]
7. Essays.
Emerson[209] Macaulay
Bacon[210] Leigh Hunt
Montaigne[211] Arnold
Ruskin[212] Buckle
Carlyle[212] Hume
Addison[212] Froude
Symonds
Steele
Browne
Johnson
De Quincey
Foster
Hazlitt
Lessing
Sparks
Disraeli
Whipple
Lamb
Schiller
Coleridge
8. Fiction.
Scott[213] Rousseau[235]
Eliot[214] Saintine[235]
Dickens[215] Coffin[236]
Hawthorne[216] Reade[236]
Goldsmith[217] Warren[236]
Bulwer[218] Landor[237]
MacDonald[219] Turgenieff[237]
Thackeray[220] Sue[237]
Kingsley[221] Manzoni[237]
Wallace[222] Cottin[238]
Tourgee[223] Besant[238]
Hugo[224] Stevenson[238]
Dumas[224] Ward[239]
Defoe[225] Deland[239]
Hughes[225] Sewell[239]
Stowe[226] Bret Harte[239]
Cooper[226] Green[240]
Curtis[227] Mulock[240]
Warner[227] Disraeli[240]
Aldrich[228] Howells[240]
Hearn[228] Tolstoi[240]
Ebers[229] Sand[241]
Sienkiewicz[229] Black[241]
Austen[230] Blackmore[241]
Bronte[230] Schreiner[241]
Alcott[231] Bremer[242]
Burnett[231] Trollope[242]
Cable[232] Winthrop[242]
Craddock[232] Richardson[243]
Whitney[233] Smollett[243]
Jewett[233] Boccaccio[243]
Fielding[234]
Le Sage[234]
Balzac[234]
9. Oratory.
Demosthenes Sumner
Burke Henry
Fox Otis
Pitt Jay
Webster Madison
Clay Jefferson
Phillips Beecher
Lincoln Brooks
Everett Choate
Bright Garfield
Ingersoll
Erskine
Sheridan
Gladstone
Cicero
Quintilian
Bossuet
Saint Chrysostom
10. Wit & Humor.
Lowell[244] Ingersoll[248]
Holmes[245] Holley[249]
Dickens[246] Curtis[250]
Cervantes[247] Depew[251]
Twain[252]
Warner[253]
Edwards[254]
Hale[255]
Nasby[256]
Ward[257]
Jerrold[258]
Voltaire[259]
Byron[259]
Butler[260]
Swift[260]
Rabelais[261]
Sterne[261]
Juvenal[262]
Lucian[262]
11. Fables & Fairy Tales.
Andersen[263] Bulfinch[268]
La Fontaine[264] Saxe[269]
AEsop[265] Florian[270]
Grimm[266] Kipling[270]
Goethe[267] Babrius[271]
Hawthorne[267] Hauff[272]
Ovid[273]
Curtin[273]
Fiske[273]
12. Travel.
Cook[274] Marco Polo[277]
Humboldt[275] Kane[278]
Darwin[276] Livingstone[279]
Stanley[280]
Du Chaillu[281]
Niebuhr[282]
Bruce[283]
Heber[284]
Lander[285]
Waterton[286]
Mungo Park[287]
Ouseley[288]
Barth[289]
Boteler[290]
Maundeville[291]
Warburton[292]
13. Guides.
Foster[293] Brook[303]
Pall Mall[294] Leypoldt[304]
Morley[295] Richardson[305]
Welsh[296] Harrison[306]
Taine[297] Ruskin[307]
Botta[298] Bright[308]
Allibone[299] Dunlop[309]
Bartlett[300] Baldwin[309]
Ballou[301] Adams[309]
Bryant[302]
Palgrave[302]
Roget's Thesaurus
Dictionaries
Encyclopaedias
14. Miscellaneous.
Smiles' Self-Help[310] Sheking[324]
Irving's Sketch Book[311] Analects of Confucius[325]
Bacon's New Atlantis[312] Mesnevi[326]
Bellamy[313] Buddhism[327]
Arabian Nights[314] Mahabharata[328]
Munchausen[315] Ramayana[329]
Beowulf[316] Vedas[330]
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle[317] Koran[331]
Froissart[318] Talmud[332]
Nibelungenlied[319] Hooker[333]
Icelandic Sagas[320] Swedenborg[333]
Elder Edda[321] Newton[333]
The Cid[322] Kepler[333]
Morte D'Arthur[323] Copernicus[333]
Laplace[333]
REMARKS ON TABLE I.
RELIGION AND MORALS.
Religion and Morals, though not identical, are so closely related that
they are grouped together. The books in Column 1 by no means exhaust
these subjects, for they run like threads of gold through the whole warp
and woof of poetry. Philosophy, fiction, and fable, biography, history,
and essays, oratory and humor, seem rather satellites that attend upon
moral feelings than independent orbs, and even science is not dumb upon
these all-absorbing topics. If we are to be as broad-minded in our
religious views as we seek to be in other matters, we must become
somewhat acquainted with the worship of races other than our own. This
may be done through Homer, Hesiod, Ovid, Confucius, Buddha, the Vedas,
Koran, Talmud, Edda, Sagas, Beowulf, Nibelungenlied, Shah Nameh, etc.
(which are all in some sense "Bibles," or books that have grown out of
the hearts of the people), and through general works, such as Clarke's
"Ten Great Religions."
[1] Especially Job, and Psalms 19, 103, 104, 107, in the Old Testament;
and in the New the four Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles. (m. R. D.
C. G.)
[2] Next to the Bible, probably no book is so much read by the English
peoples as Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a simple, vivid, helpful story
of Christian life and its obstacles. No writer has so well portrayed the
central truths of Christianity as this great, untrained, imaginative
genius, pouring his life upon the deathless pages of his poetic allegory
during the twelve long years in the latter part of the 17th century,
when he was imprisoned, under the Restoration, merely because of his
religious principles. (e. R. D.)
[3] Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying" is a wise, frank talk about the
care of our time, purity of intention, practice of the presence of God,
temperance, justice, modesty, humility, envy, contentedness, etc. Some
portions of the first hundred and fifty pages are of the utmost
practical value. Even Ruskin admits that Taylor and Bunyan are rightly
placed among the world's best. (Eng., 17th cent.--m. R. D.)
[4] "Imitation of Christ" is a sister book to the last, written in the
15th century by Thomas a Kempis, a German monk, of pure and beautiful
life and thought. It is a world-famous book, having been translated into
every civilized language, and having passed through more than five
hundred editions in the present century. (m. R. D.)
[5] Spencer's "Data of Ethics" is one of the most important books in
literature, having to the science of ethics much the same relation as
Newton's "Principia" to astronomy, or Darwin's "Origin of Species" to
biology. Note especially the parts concerning altruistic selfishness,
the morality of health, and the development of moral feeling in general.
(Eng., 19th cent.--d. R. D. G.) Spencer's "First Principles" is also
necessary to an understanding of the scientific religious thinking of
the day. In connection with Spencer's works, "The Idea of God" and the
"Destiny of Man," by Fiske, may be read with profit. The author of these
books is in large part a follower and expounder of Spencer.
[6] The "Meditations" of M. Aurelius is a book that is full of deep,
pure beauty and philosophy; one of the sweetest influences that can be
brought into the life, and one of Canon Farrar's twelve favorites out of
all literature. (Rome, 2d cent.--m. R. D.)
[7] Plutarch's "Morals" supplied much of the cream used by Taylor in the
churning that produced the "Holy Living and Dying." Emerson says that we
owe more to Plutarch than to all the other ancients. Many great authors
have been indebted to him,--Rabelais, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire,
Rousseau, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Dryden, among the number. Plutarch's
"Morals" is a treasure-house of wisdom and beauty. There is a very fine
edition with an introduction by Emerson. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.)
[8] Seneca's "Morals" is a fit companion of the preceding six books,
full of deep thought upon topics of every-day import, set out in clear
and forceful language. The Camelot Library contains a very good
selection from his ethical treatises and his delightful letters, which
are really moral essays. (Rome, 1st cent.--m. R. D.)
[9] Epictetus was another grand moralist, the teacher of Marcus
Aurelius. Next to Bunyan and Kempis, the books of these great stoics,
filled as they are with the serenity of minds that had made themselves
independent of circumstance and passion, have the greatest popularity
accorded to any ethical works. Epictetus was a Roman slave in the 1st
century A. D. (m. R. D.)
[10] The little book on "Tolerance" by Phillips Brooks ought to be read
by every one. See Table III. side No. 23. The sermons of Dr. Brooks and
of Robertson are among the most helpful and inspiring reading we know.
Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" is a book of ingenious
and often poetic analogies between the physical and spiritual worlds. If
read as poetry, no fault can be found with it; but the reader must be
careful to test thoroughly the laws laid down, and make sure that there
is some weightier proof than mere analogy, before hanging important
conclusions on the statements of this author. A later book by Drummond
entitled "The Greatest Thing in the World" is also worthy of attention.
(U. S., 19th cent.)
[11] "Areopagitica." A noble plea for liberty of speech and press.
(Eng., early 17th cent.)
[12] Keble's beautiful "Christian Year."
[13] Cicero's "Offices" is a very valuable ethical work. It directs a
young Roman how he may attain distinction and the respect and confidence
of his fellow-citizens. Its underlying principles are of eternal value,
and its arrangement is admirable. Dr. Peabody's translation is the best.
(Rome, 1st cent. B. C.)
[14] "Pensees." Pascal's "Thoughts" are known the world over for their
depth and beauty. (France, 17th cent.)
[15] "The Perfect Life" and other works. (U. S., 19th cent.)
[16] Ethics. (Greece, 4th cent. B. C.)
[17] "Confessions" and "The City of God." (Rome, 4th cent.)
[18] Analogy of Religion. (Eng., 18th cent.)
[19] Ethics and theologico-political speculation. (Dutch, 17th cent.)
POETRY AND THE DRAMA.
The faculty which most widely distinguishes man from his possible
relatives, the lower animals, and the varying power of which most
clearly marks the place of each individual in the scale of superiority,
is imagination. It lies at the bottom of intellect and character.
Memory, reason, and discovery are built upon it; and sympathy, the
mother of kindness, tenderness, and love, is itself the child of the
imagination. Poetry is the married harmony of imagination and beauty.
The poet is the man of fancy and the man of music. This is why in all
ages mankind instinctively feel that poetry is supreme. Of all kinds of
literature, it is the most stimulating, broadening, beautifying, and
should have a large place in every life. Buy the best poets, read them
carefully, mark the finest passages, and recur to them many, many times.
A poem is like a violin: it must be kept and played upon a long time
before it yields to us its sweetest music.