What Books Shall Young Folks Read?
THE greatest problem presented to the consideration of parents and teachers now-a-days is how properly to regulate and direct the reading of the children. There is no scarcity of reading-matter. The poorest child may have free access to books and papers, more than he can read. The publication of periodicals and cheap books especially designed to meet the tastes of young people has developed into an enterprise of vast proportions. Every day, millions of pages of reading matter designed for children are printed and scattered broadcast over the land. But unlimited opportunities often prove to be a damage and a detriment; and over-abundance, rather than scarcity, is to be deplored. As a general rule,the books read by young people are not such as lead to studious habits, or induce correct ideas of right living. They are intended simply to amuse; there are no elements of strength in them, leading up to a noble manhood. I doubt if in the future it can be said of any great statesman or scholar that his tastes had been formed, and his energies directed and sustained, through the influence of his early reading; but rather that he had attained success, and whatever of true nobility there is in him, in spite of such influence.
This was not always so. The experience of a few well-known scholars will illustrate. “From my infancy,” says Benjamin Franklin, “I was passionately fond of reading, and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in the purchasing of books. I was very fond of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton’s Historical Collections. They were small chapmen’s books, and cheap; forty volumes in all. My father’s little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. I have often regretted that at a time when I had such a thirst forknowledge more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was resolved I should not be bred to divinity. There was among them Plutarch’s Lives, which I read abundantly, and I still think the time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of Defoe’s called ‘An Essay on Projects,’ and another of Dr. Mather’s, called ‘An Essay to Do Good,’ which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life. This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer.... I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indenture when I was yet but twelve years old.... I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon, and clean. Often I sat up in my chamber the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned in the morning, lest it should be found missing.... About this time I met with an odd volume of the ‘Spectator.’ I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it. With that view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should occur to me. Then I compared my ‘Spectator’ with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them....
“Now it was, that, being on some occasions made ashamed of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed learning when at school, I took Cocker’s book on Arithmetic, and went through the whole by myself with the greatest ease. I also read Seller’s and Sturny’s book on Navigation, which made me acquainted with the little geometry it contains; but I never proceeded far in that science. I read about this time ‘Locke on the Human Understanding,’ and the ‘Art of Thinking,’ by Messrs. de Port Royal.
“While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English Grammar (I think it was Greenwood’s), having at the end of it two little sketches on the ‘Arts ofRhetoric and Logic,’ the latter finishing with a dispute in the Socratic method. And soon after, I procured Xenophon’s ‘Memorable Things of Socrates,’ wherein there are many examples of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer.”19
Hugh Miller, that most admirable Scotchman and self-made man, relates a similar experience: “During my sixth year I spelled my way through the Shorter Catechism, the Proverbs, and the New Testament, and then entered upon the highest form in the dame’s school as a member of the Bible class. But all the while the process of learning had been a dark one, which I slowly mastered, in humble confidence in the awful wisdom of the schoolmistress, not knowing whither it tended; when at once my mind awoke to the meaning of the most delightful of all narratives,—the story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before! I actually found out for myself that the art of reading is the art of finding stories in books; and from that moment reading became one of the most delightful of my amusements. Ibegan by getting into a corner on the dismissal of the school, and there conning over to myself the new-found story of Joseph; nor did one perusal serve;—the other Scripture stories followed,—in especial, the story of Samson and the Philistines, of David and Goliath, of the prophets Elijah and Elisha; and after these came the New Testament stories and parables. Assisted by my uncles, too, I began to collect a library in a box of birch bark about nine inches square, which I found quite large enough to contain a great many immortal works: Jack the Giant-Killer, and Jack and the Bean-Stalk, and the Yellow Dwarf, and Blue Beard, and Sinbad the Sailor, and Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, with several others of resembling character. Those intolerable nuisances, the useful-knowledge books, had not yet arisen, like tenebrious stars on the educational horizon, to darken the world, and shed their blighting influence on the opening intellect of the ‘youthhood;’ and so, from my rudimental books—books that made themselves truly such by their thorough assimilation with the rudimental mind—I passed on, without being conscious of break or line of division, to books on which the learned arecontent to write commentaries and dissertations, but which I found to be quite as nice children’s books as any of the others. Old Homer wrote admirably for little folk, especially in the Odyssey; a copy of which, in the only true translation extant,—for, judging from its surpassing interest, and the wrath of critics, such I hold that of Pope to be,—I found in the house of a neighbor. Next came the Iliad; not, however, in a complete copy, but represented by four of the six volumes of Bernard Lintot. With what power and at how early an age true genius impresses! I saw, even at this immature period, that no other writer could cast a javelin with half the force of Homer. The missiles went whizzing athwart his pages; and I could see the momentary gleam of the steel, ere it buried itself deep in brass and bull-hide. I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child’s book, of not less interest than even the Iliad, which might, I was told, be read on Sabbaths, in a magnificent old edition of the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ printed on coarse whity-brown paper, and charged with numerous wood-cuts, each of which occupied an entire page, which, on principles of economy, bore letter-press on the other side....
“In process of time, I devoured, besides these genial works, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Ambrose on Angels, the ‘judgment chapter’ in Howie’s Scotch Worthies, Byron’s Narrative, and the Adventures of Philip Quarll, with a good many other adventures and voyages, real and fictitious, part of a very miscellaneous collection of books made by my father. It was a melancholy library to which I had fallen heir. Most of the missing volumes had been with the master aboard his vessel when he perished. Of an early edition of Cook’s Voyages, all the volumes were now absent, save the first; and a very tantalizing romance, in four volumes,—Mrs. Radcliffe’s ‘Mysteries of Udolpho,’—was represented by only the earlier two. Small as the collection was, it contained some rare books,—among the rest, a curious little volume entitled ‘The Miracles of Nature and Art,’ to which we find Dr. Johnson referring, in one of the dialogues chronicled by Boswell, as scarce even in his day, and which had been published, he said, some time in the seventeenth century by a bookseller whose shop hung perched on Old London Bridge, between sky and water. It contained, too, the only copy I ever saw of the ‘Memoirs of a Protestant condemned tothe Galleys of France for his Religion,’—a work interesting from the circumstance that, though it bore another name on its titlepage, it had been translated from the French for a few guineas by poor Goldsmith, in his days of obscure literary drudgery, and exhibited the peculiar excellences of his style. The collection boasted, besides, of a curious old book, illustrated by very uncouth plates, that detailed the perils and sufferings of an English sailor who had spent the best years of his life as a slave in Morocco. It had its volumes of sound theology, too, and of stiff controversy,—Flavel’s Works, and Henry’s Commentary, and Hutchinson on the Lesser Prophets, and a very old treatise on the Revelations, with the titlepage away, and blind Jameson’s volume on the Hierarchy, with first editions of Naphtali, The Cloud of Witnesses, and the Hind Let Loose.... Of the works of fact and incident which it contained, those of the voyages were my special favorites. I perused with avidity the Voyages of Anson, Drake, Raleigh, Dampier, and Captain Woods Rogers; and my mind became so filled with conceptions of what was to be seen and done in foreign parts, that I wished myself big enough to be a sailor, that I might go and see coralislands and burning mountains, and hunt wild beasts, and fight battles.”20
William and Robert Chambers, the founders of the great publishing-house of W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh, were self-educated men. “At little above fourteen years of age,” writes William, “I was thrown on my own resources. From necessity, not less than from choice, I resolved at all hazards to make the weekly four shillings serve for everything. I cannot remember entertaining the slightest despondency on the subject.... I made such attempts as were at all practicable, while an apprentice, to remedy the defects of my education at school. Nothing in that way could be done in the shop, for there reading was proscribed. But, allowed to take home a book for study, I gladly availed myself of the privilege. The mornings in summer, when light cost nothing, were my chief reliance. Fatigued with trudging about, I was not naturally inclined to rise; but on this and some other points I overruled the will, and forced myself to rise at five o’clock, and have a spell at reading until it was time to think of moving off,—my brother, when he was with me, doing the same. In this way I madesome progress in French, with the pronunciation of which I was already familiar from the speech of the French prisoners of war at Peebles. I likewise dipped into several books of solid worth,—such as Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations,’ Locke’s ‘Human Understanding,’ Paley’s ‘Moral Philosophy,’ and Blair’s ‘Belles-Lettres,’—fixing the leading facts and theories in my memory by a note-book for the purpose. In another book I kept for years an accurate account of my expenses, not allowing a single halfpenny to escape record.”
And Robert, the younger brother, confirms the story, with even more accurate attention to details. “My brother William and I,” he says, “lived in lodgings together. Our room and bed cost three shillings a week.... I used to be in great distress for want of fire. I could not afford either that or a candle myself; so I have often sat by my landlady’s kitchen fire,—if fire it could be called, which was only a little heap of embers,—reading Horace and conning my dictionary by a light which required me to hold the books almost close to the grate. What a miserable winter that was! Yet I cannot help feeling proud of my trials at that time. My brother and I—he then between fifteen and sixteen, I betweenthirteen and fourteen—had made a resolution together that we would exercise the last degree of self-denial. My brother actually saved money out of his income. I remember seeing him take five-and-twenty shillings out of a closed box which he kept to receive his savings; and that was the spare money of only a twelvemonth.”21
Rev. Robert Collyer, whose name is known and honored by every American scholar, says: “Do you want to know how I manage to talk to you in this simple Saxon? I will tell you. I read Bunyan, Crusoe, and Goldsmith when I was a boy, morning, noon, and night. All the rest was task work; these were my delight, with the stories in the Bible, and with Shakspeare when at last the mighty master came within our doors.... I took to these as I took to milk, and, without the least idea what I was doing, got the taste for simple words into the very fibre of my nature. There was day-school for me until I was thirteen years old, and then I had to turn in and work thirteen hours a day.... I could not go home for the Christmas of 1839, and was feeling very sad about it all, for I was only a boy;and, sitting by the fire, an old farmer came in and said, ‘I notice thou’s fond o’ reading, so I brought thee summat to read.’ It was Irving’s ‘Sketch Book.’ I had never heard of the work. I went at it, and was ‘as them that dream.’ No such delight had touched me since the old days of Crusoe. I saw the Hudson and the Catskills, took poor Rip at once into my heart, as everybody has, pitied Ichabod while I laughed at him, thought the old Dutch feast a most admirable thing; and long before I was through, all regret at my lost Christmas had gone down the wind, and I had found out there are books and books. That vast hunger to read never left me. If there was no candle, I poked my head down to the fire; read while I was eating, blowing the bellows, or walking from one place to another. I could read and walk four miles an hour. I remember while I was yet a lad reading Macaulay’s great essay on Bacon, and I could grasp its wonderful beauty.... Now, give a boy a passion like this for anything, books or business, painting or farming, mechanism or music, and you give him thereby a lever to lift his world, and a patent of nobility, if the thing he does is noble.”
It may be questioned whether, in these days of opportunities, it would be possible to find boys of thirteen and sixteen who would be able to read understandingly, much less appreciate and enjoy, those masterpieces of English literature so eagerly studied by Franklin and Hugh Miller and the Chambers brothers. Their mental appetites have been treated to a different kind of diet. If their minds have not been dwarfed and stunted by indulgence in what has been aptly termed “pen-poison,” their tastes have been perverted and the growth of their reasoning powers checked by being fed upon the milk-and-water stuff recommended as harmless literature. They are inveterate devourers of stories, and novels, and the worthless material which is recommended as good reading, but which, in reality, is nothing but a “discipline of debasement.” Better that children should not read at all, than read much of that which passes current now-a-days for entertaining reading.
All children like to read stories. The love of “the story,” in some form or other, is indeed a characteristic of the human mind, and exists everywhere, in all conditions of life. But stories are the sweets of our mentalexistence, and only a few of the best and greatest have in them the elements which will lead to a strong and vigorous mind-growth. Constant feeding upon light literature—however good that literature may be in itself—will debilitate and corrupt the mental appetite of the child, much the same as an unrestrained indulgence in jam and preserves will undermine and destroy his physical health. In either case, if no result more serious occurs, the worst forms of dyspepsia will follow. Literary dyspepsia is the most common form of mental disease among us, and there is no knowing what may be the extent of its influence upon American civilization. Fifty per cent of the readers who patronize our great public libraries have weak literary stomachs; they cannot digest anything stronger than that insipid solution, the last society novel, or anything purer than the muddy decoctions poured out by the periodical press. When, of all the reading done in a public library, eighty per cent is of books in the different departments of fiction, I doubt whether, after all, that library is a public benefit. Yet this is but the natural result of the loose habits of reading which we encourage among our children, and cultivate inourselves,—the habit of reading anything that comes to hand, provided only that it is entertaining.
How then shall we so order the child’s reading as to avoid the formation of desultory and aimless habits?
Naturally, the earliest reading is the story,—simple, short, straightforward recitals of matters of daily occurrence, of the doings of children and their parents, their friends or their pets. “The Nursery,” a little magazine published in Boston, contains an excellent variety of such stories. Now and then we may pick up a good book, too, for this class of readers; but there are many worthless books here, as elsewhere, and careful parents will look well into that which they buy. The illuminated covers are often the only recommendation of books of this kind. Numbers of them are made only for the holiday trade; the illustrations of many are from second-hand cuts; and the text is frequently written to fit the illustrations. A pure, fresh book for a little child is a treasure to be sought for and appreciated.
Very early in child-life comes the period of a belief in fairies; and the reading of fairy-stories is, to children, a very proper, nay,a very necessary thing. I pity the boy or girl who must grow up without having made intimate acquaintance with “Mother Goose,” and the wonderful stories of “Jack the Giant-Killer,” and “Blue Beard,” and “Cinderella,” and those other strange tales as old as the race itself, and yet new to every succeeding generation. They are a part of the inheritance of the English-speaking people, and belong, as a kind of birthright, to every intelligent child.
As your little reader advances in knowledge and reading-ability, he should be treated to stronger food. Grimm’s “Household Stories” and the delightful “Wonder Stories” of Hans Christian Andersen, should form a part of the library of every child as he passes through the “fairy-story period” of his life; nor can we well omit to give him Charles Kingsley’s “Water Babies,” and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” And now, or later, as circumstances shall dictate, we may introduce him to that prince of all wonder-books, “The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment,” in an edition carefully adapted to children’s reading. The tales related in this book “are not ours by birth, but they have nevertheless taken their place amongst the similar things of ourown which constitute the national literary inheritance. Altogether, it is a glorious book, and one to which we cannot well show enough of respect.”
And while your reader lingers in the great world of poetic fancy and child-wonder, let him revel for a while in those enchanting idyls and myths which delighted mankind when the race was young and this earth was indeed a wonder-world. These he may find, apparelled in a dress adapted to our modern notions of propriety, in Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book” and “Tanglewood Tales,” in Kingsley’s “Greek Heroes,” and, in a more prosaic form, in Cox’s “Tales of Ancient Greece;” and in “The Story of Siegfried,” and, later, in Morris’s “Sigurd the Volsung,” he may read the no less charming myths of our own northern ancestors, and the world-famous legend of the Nibelungen heroes. Then, by a natural transition, you advance into the border-land which lies between the world of pure fancy and the domains of sober-hued reality. You introduce your reader to some wholesome adaptations of those Mediæval Romances, which, with their one grain of fact to a thousand of fable, gave such noble delight to lords and ladies in the days of chivalry. Theseyou will find in Sidney Lanier’s “Boy’s King Arthur” and “Boy’s Mabinogion;” in “The Story of Roland,” by the author of the present volume; and in Bulfinch’s “Legends of Charlemagne” and “The Age of Chivalry.”
Do you understand now to what point you have led your young reader? You have simply followed the order of nature and of human development, and you have gradually—almost imperceptibly even to yourself—brought him out of the world of child-wonder and fairy-land, through the middle ground of chivalric romance, to the very borders of the domains of history. He is ready and eager to enter into the realms of sober-hued truth; but I would not advise undue haste in this matter. The mediæval romances have inspired him with a desire to know more of those days when knights-errant rode over sea and land to do battle in the name of God and for the honor of their king, the Church, and the ladies; he wants to know something more nearly the truth than that which the minstrels and story-tellers of the Middle Ages can tell him. And yet he is not prepared for a sudden transition from romance to history. Let him read “Ivanhoe;” then give him Howard Pyle’s “Story of Robin Hood” and Lanier’s“Boy’s Percy;” and if you care to allow him so much more fiction, let him read Madame Colomb’s “Franchise” as translated and adapted by Davenport Adams in his “Page, Squire, and Knight.” Can you withhold history longer from your reader? I think not. He will demand some authentic knowledge of Richard the Lion-hearted, and of King John, and of the Saxons and Normans, and of the Crusades, and of the Saracens, and of Charlemagne and his peers. Lose not your opportunity, but pass over with your pupil into the promised land. The transition is easy,—imperceptible, in fact,—and, leaving fiction and “the story” behind you, you enter the fields of truth and history. As for books, it is difficult now to advise; but there are Abbott’s little histories,—give him the “History of Richard I.” to begin with, then get the whole set for him. Yonge’s “Young Folks’ History of England,” or Dickens’s “Child’s History” will also be in demand. The way is easy now, the road is open, you need no further guidance—only, keep straight ahead.
There are other books, of course, which the young reader will find in his way, and which it is altogether proper and necessary that he should read. For instance, there is “Robinson Crusoe,” without a knowledge of which the boy loses one of his dearest enjoyments. “How youth passed long ago, when there was no Crusoe to waft it away in fancy to the Pacific and fix it upon the lonely doings of the shipwrecked mariner, is inconceivable; but we can readily suppose that it must have been different,” says Robert Chambers. And no substitute for the original Robinson will answer. Not one of the ten thousand tales of adventure recently published for boys will fill the niche which this book fills, or atone in the least for any neglect of its merits. “The Swiss Family Robinson” approaches nearest in excellence to Defoe’s immortal creation, and may very profitably form a part of every boy’s or girl’s library. Then, among the really unexceptionable books, of the healthful, hopeful, truthful sort, I may name “Tom Brown’s School Days at Rugby,” Lamb’s “Tales from Shakspeare,” Mitchell’s “About Old Story-Tellers;” the inimitable “Bodley Books,” Bayard Taylor’s “Boys of Other Countries,” Abbott’s “Franconia Stories,” and a few others in the line of History or Travels, to be mentioned in future chapters. These I believe to be, in every sense, proper, wholesome books, free from all kinds of mannerisms,free from improper language, free from sickly sentiment and “gush;” and these, if not the most instructive books, are the sort of books which the child or youth should read as a kind of relish or supplement to the more methodical course of reading which I have elsewhere indicated.
In this careful direction of the child’s reading, and in the cultivation of his literary taste, if you have succeeded in bringing him to the point which we have indicated, you have done much towards forming his character for life. There is little danger that bad books will ever possess any attractions for him; he will henceforth be apt to go right of his own accord, preferring the wholesome and the true to any of the flashy allurements of the “literary slums and grog-shops,” which so abound and flourish in these days.
But perhaps the fundamental error in determining what books children shall read lies in the very popular notion that to read much, and to derive pleasure and profit from our reading, many books are necessary. And the greatest obstacle in the way of forming and directing a proper taste for good reading is to be found, not in the scarcity, but in the superabundance of reading matter. The greatflood of periodical literature for young people is the worst hindrance to the formation of right habits in reading. Some of these periodicals are simply unadulterated “pen poison,” designed not only to enrich their projectors, but to deprave the minds of those who read. Others are published, doubtless, from pure motives and with the best intentions; but, being managed by inexperienced or incapable editors, they are, at the best, but thin dilutions of milk-and-water literature, leading to mental imbecility and starvation. The periodicals fit to be placed in the hands of reading children may be numbered on half your fingers; and even these should not be read without due discrimination.
Too great a variety of books or papers placed at the disposal of inexperienced readers offers a premium to desultoriness, and fosters and encourages the habit of devouring every species of literary food that comes to hand. Hence we should beware not only of the bad, but of too great plenty of the good. “The benefit of a right good book,” says Mr. Hudson, “all depends upon this, that its virtue justsoakinto the mind, and there become a living, generative force. To be running and rambling over a great many books, tasting alittle here, a little there, and tying up with none, is good for nothing; nay, worse than nothing. Such a process of unceasing change is also a discipline of perpetual emptiness. The right method in the culture of the mind is to take a few choice books, and weave about them
‘The fixed delights of house and home,Friendship that will not break, and love that cannot roam.’
‘The fixed delights of house and home,Friendship that will not break, and love that cannot roam.’
‘The fixed delights of house and home,Friendship that will not break, and love that cannot roam.’
‘The fixed delights of house and home,
Friendship that will not break, and love that cannot roam.’
Hints on the Formation of School Libraries.
Whatsort of reading are our schools planting an appetite for? Are they really doing anything to instruct and form the mental taste, so that the pupils on leaving them may be safely left to choose their reading for themselves? It is clear in evidence that they are far from educating the young to take pleasure in what is intellectually noble and sweet. The statistics of our public libraries show that some cause is working mightily to prepare them only for delight in what is both morally and intellectually mean and foul. It would not indeed be fair to charge our public schools with positively giving this preparation; but it is their business to forestall and prevent such a result. If, along with the faculty of reading, they cannot also impart some safeguards of taste and habit against such a result, will the system prove a success?—Henry N. Hudson.
Whatsort of reading are our schools planting an appetite for? Are they really doing anything to instruct and form the mental taste, so that the pupils on leaving them may be safely left to choose their reading for themselves? It is clear in evidence that they are far from educating the young to take pleasure in what is intellectually noble and sweet. The statistics of our public libraries show that some cause is working mightily to prepare them only for delight in what is both morally and intellectually mean and foul. It would not indeed be fair to charge our public schools with positively giving this preparation; but it is their business to forestall and prevent such a result. If, along with the faculty of reading, they cannot also impart some safeguards of taste and habit against such a result, will the system prove a success?—Henry N. Hudson.
MUCH is being said, now-a-days, about the utility of school libraries; and in some instances much ill-directed, if not entirely misdirected, labor is being expended in their formation. Public libraries are not necessarily public benefits;and school libraries, unless carefully selected and judiciously managed, will not prove to be unmixed blessings. There are several questions which teachers and school officers should seriously consider before setting themselves to the task of establishing a library; and no teacher who is not himself a knower of books, and a reader, should presume to regulate and direct the reading of others.
What are the objects of a school library? They are twofold: First, to aid in cultivating a taste for good reading; second, to supply materials for supplementary study and independent research. Now, neither of these objects can be attained unless your library is composed of books selected especially with reference to the capabilities and needs of your pupils. Dealing, as you do, with pupils of various degrees of intellectual strength, warped by every variety of moral influence and home training, the cultivation of a taste for good reading among them is no small matter. To do this, your library must contain none but truly good books. It is a great mistake to suppose that every collection of books placed in a schoolhouse is a library; and yet that is the name which is applied to many very inferior collections. It is no uncommon thing to find these so-called libraries composed altogether of the odds and ends of literature,—of donations, entirely worthless to their donors; of second-hand school-books; of Patent Office Reports and other public documents; and of the dilapidated remains of some older and equally worthless collection of books: and with these you talk about cultivating a taste for good reading! One really good book, a single copy of “St. Nicholas,” is worth more than all this trash. Get it out of sight at once! The value of a library—no matter for what purpose it has been founded—depends not upon the number of its books, but upon their character. And so the first rule to be observed in the formation of a school library is, Buy it at first hand, even though you should begin with a single volume, and shun all kinds of donations, unless they be donations of cash, or books of unquestionable value.
In selecting books for purchase, you will have an eye single to the wants of the students who are to use them. A school library should be in no sense a public circulating library. You cannot cater to the literary tastes of the public, and at the same time serve the best interests of your pupils. Booksrelating to history, to biography, and to travel will form a very large portion of your library. These should be chosen with reference to the age and mental capacity of those who are to read them. No book should be bought merely because it is a good book, but because we know that it can be made useful in the attainment of certain desired ends. The courses of reading indicated in the following chapters of this work, it is hoped, will assist you largely in making a wise selection as well as in directing to a judicious use of books. For the selection of a book is only half of your duty: the profitable use of it is the other half; and this lesson should be early taught to your pupils.
If, through means of your school library or otherwise, you succeed in enlisting the interest of a young person in profitable methodical reading, you have accomplished a great deal towards the forwarding of his education and the formation of his character. It is a great mistake to suppose that a boy of twelve cannot pursue a course of reading in English history; if properly directed and encouraged, he will enjoy it far better than the perusal of the milk-and-water story-books which, under the guise of “harmless juvenile literature,” have been placed in his hands by well-meaning teachers or parents.
In a former chapter I have shown you how, with a library of only fifty volumes, you may have in your possession the very best of all that the world’s master-minds have ever written,—food, as I have said, for study, and meditation, and mind growth enough for a lifetime. Such a library is worth more than ten thousand volumes of the ordinary “popular” kind of books. So, also, the reading of a very few books, carefully and methodically, by your pupils—the constant presence of the very best books in our language, and the exclusion of the trashy and the vile—will give them more real enjoyment and infinitely greater profit than the desultory or hasty reading of many volumes. A small library is to be despised only when it contains inferior books.
Courses of Reading in History.
History, at least in its state of ideal perfection, is a compound of poetry and philosophy.—Macaulay.Let us search more and more into the Past; let all men explore it as the true fountain of knowledge, by whose light alone, consciously or unconsciously employed, can the Present and the Future be interpreted or guessed at.—Carlyle.History is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall; but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.... Justice and truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes at last to them in French revolutions and other terrible ways. That is one lesson of history. Another is, that we should draw no horoscopes; that we should expect little, for what we expect will not come to pass.—Froude.The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the Muse of history will utter oracles, as never to those who do not respect themselves. I have noexpectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.... The instinct of the mind, the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make of the signal narrations of history.—Emerson.
History, at least in its state of ideal perfection, is a compound of poetry and philosophy.—Macaulay.
Let us search more and more into the Past; let all men explore it as the true fountain of knowledge, by whose light alone, consciously or unconsciously employed, can the Present and the Future be interpreted or guessed at.—Carlyle.
History is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall; but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.... Justice and truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes at last to them in French revolutions and other terrible ways. That is one lesson of history. Another is, that we should draw no horoscopes; that we should expect little, for what we expect will not come to pass.—Froude.
The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the Muse of history will utter oracles, as never to those who do not respect themselves. I have noexpectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.... The instinct of the mind, the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make of the signal narrations of history.—Emerson.
Iventure to propose the following courses of reading in history. Properly modified with reference to individual needs and capabilities, these lists will prove to be safe helps and guides to younger as well as older readers, to classes in high schools and colleges as well as private students and specialists. To read all the works here mentioned, as carefully and critically as the nature of their contents demands, would require no inconsiderable portion of one’s reading lifetime. Such a thing is not expected. The wise teacher or the judicious scholar will select from the list that which is most proper for him, and which best meets his wants, or aids him most in the pursuit of his native aim.
The titles, so far as possible, are given in chronological order. Those printed initalicsare of books indispensable for purposes of reference; those printed insmall capitalsare of works especially adapted to younger readers.
I. GREEK HISTORY.
Dictionaries.
No reader can well do without a good classical dictionary. The following are recommended as the best—
Anthon:Classical Dictionary.Smith:Student’s Classical Dictionary.——Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.Ginn & Heath’sClassical Atlas.Kiepert’sSchulatlas.
Anthon:Classical Dictionary.
Smith:Student’s Classical Dictionary.
——Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.
Ginn & Heath’sClassical Atlas.
Kiepert’sSchulatlas.
General Histories.
Cox: General History of Greece.Smith: Smaller History of Greece.Felton: Ancient and Modern Greece.Yonge:Young Folks’ History of Greece.Grote:History of Greece(12 vols.).Curtius:History of Greece(5 vols.); translated from the German, by A. W. Ward.J. A. St. John: Ancient Greece.
Cox: General History of Greece.
Smith: Smaller History of Greece.
Felton: Ancient and Modern Greece.
Yonge:Young Folks’ History of Greece.
Grote:History of Greece(12 vols.).
Curtius:History of Greece(5 vols.); translated from the German, by A. W. Ward.
J. A. St. John: Ancient Greece.
Mythology.
Dwight:Grecian and Roman Mythology.Murray: Manual of Mythology.Keightley:Classical Mythology.Gladstone: Juventus Mundi.Ruskin: The Queen of the Air.Cox:Tales of Ancient Greece.Kingsley:The Greek Heroes.Hawthorne:The Wonder Book.——Tanglewood Tales.
Dwight:Grecian and Roman Mythology.
Murray: Manual of Mythology.
Keightley:Classical Mythology.
Gladstone: Juventus Mundi.
Ruskin: The Queen of the Air.
Cox:Tales of Ancient Greece.
Kingsley:The Greek Heroes.
Hawthorne:The Wonder Book.
——Tanglewood Tales.
Miscellaneous.
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Chapman’s translation is the best. Of the later versions, that of Lord Derby is preferable.Church:Stories from Homer.Butcher and Lang’s prose translation of the Odyssey.Collins: The Iliad and the Odyssey (two volumes of “Ancient Classics for English Readers”).Gladstone: Homer.De Quincey: Homer and the Homeridæ (essay in “Literary Criticism”).Fénelon:Telemachus(translated by Hawkesworth).Benjamin: Troy.Goethe: Iphigenia in Tauris (drama, Swanwick’s translation).
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Chapman’s translation is the best. Of the later versions, that of Lord Derby is preferable.
Church:Stories from Homer.
Butcher and Lang’s prose translation of the Odyssey.
Collins: The Iliad and the Odyssey (two volumes of “Ancient Classics for English Readers”).
Gladstone: Homer.
De Quincey: Homer and the Homeridæ (essay in “Literary Criticism”).
Fénelon:Telemachus(translated by Hawkesworth).
Benjamin: Troy.
Goethe: Iphigenia in Tauris (drama, Swanwick’s translation).
The student of this period is referred also to Dr. Schliemann’s works: Ilios, Troja, and Mykenai.
Church:Stories from Herodotus.Swayne: Herodotus (Ancient Classics).Brugsch Bey: History of Egypt.Freeman: Historical Essays (2d series).Ebers: Uarda (romance, descriptive of Egyptian life and manners fourteen centuries before Christ).—— The Daughter of an Egyptian King (five centuries before Christ).Smith:Student’s History of the East.Cox: The Greeks and the Persians.Abbott:The History of Darius the Great.——The History of Xerxes the Great.Sankey: The Spartan Supremacy.Bulwer: Pausanias the Spartan (romance, 475B.C.).Glover: Leonidas (epic poem).Croly: The Death of Leonidas (poem).Robert Browning: Pheidippides (poem in “Dramatic Idyls”).Lloyd: The Age of Pericles (fifth century before Christ).Cox: The Athenian Empire.Landor: Pericles and Aspasia (in “Imaginary Conversations”).Mrs. L. M. Child: Philothea (romance of the time of Pericles).Curteis: The Macedonian Empire.Abbott:The History of Alexander the Great.Butcher: Demosthenes (Classical Writers).Greenough: Apelles and his Contemporaries (a romance of the time of Alexander).Dryden: Alexander’s Feast (poem).Bickersteth: Caubul (poem).
Church:Stories from Herodotus.
Swayne: Herodotus (Ancient Classics).
Brugsch Bey: History of Egypt.
Freeman: Historical Essays (2d series).
Ebers: Uarda (romance, descriptive of Egyptian life and manners fourteen centuries before Christ).
—— The Daughter of an Egyptian King (five centuries before Christ).
Smith:Student’s History of the East.
Cox: The Greeks and the Persians.
Abbott:The History of Darius the Great.
——The History of Xerxes the Great.
Sankey: The Spartan Supremacy.
Bulwer: Pausanias the Spartan (romance, 475B.C.).
Glover: Leonidas (epic poem).
Croly: The Death of Leonidas (poem).
Robert Browning: Pheidippides (poem in “Dramatic Idyls”).
Lloyd: The Age of Pericles (fifth century before Christ).
Cox: The Athenian Empire.
Landor: Pericles and Aspasia (in “Imaginary Conversations”).
Mrs. L. M. Child: Philothea (romance of the time of Pericles).
Curteis: The Macedonian Empire.
Abbott:The History of Alexander the Great.
Butcher: Demosthenes (Classical Writers).
Greenough: Apelles and his Contemporaries (a romance of the time of Alexander).
Dryden: Alexander’s Feast (poem).
Bickersteth: Caubul (poem).
Literature.
Mahaffy:History of Greek Literature.Schlegel: History of Dramatic Literature (first fourteen chapters).Church:Stories from the Greek Tragedians.Copleston: Æschylus (Ancient Classics).Mrs. Browning: Prometheus Bound (an English version of the great tragedy).Bishop Milman: Agamemnon.Collins: Sophocles (Ancient Classics).De Quincey: The Antigone of Sophocles (essay in “Literary Criticism”).Donne: Euripides (Ancient Classics).Froude: Sea Studies (essay in “Short Studies on Great Subjects”).Collins: Aristophanes (Ancient Classics).Mitchell: The Clouds of Aristophanes.De Quincey: Theory of Greek Tragedy (essay in “Literary Criticism”).Brodribb: Demosthenes (Ancient Classics).Collins: Plato (Ancient Classics).Jowett: The Dialogues of Plato (4 vols.).The Phædo of Plato (Wisdom Series).Plato: The Apology of Socrates.A Day in Athens with Socrates.Plutarch: On the Dæmon of Socrates (essay in the “Morals”).Grant: Xenophon (Ancient Classics).Collins: Thucydides (Ancient Classics).
Mahaffy:History of Greek Literature.
Schlegel: History of Dramatic Literature (first fourteen chapters).
Church:Stories from the Greek Tragedians.
Copleston: Æschylus (Ancient Classics).
Mrs. Browning: Prometheus Bound (an English version of the great tragedy).
Bishop Milman: Agamemnon.
Collins: Sophocles (Ancient Classics).
De Quincey: The Antigone of Sophocles (essay in “Literary Criticism”).
Donne: Euripides (Ancient Classics).
Froude: Sea Studies (essay in “Short Studies on Great Subjects”).Collins: Aristophanes (Ancient Classics).
Mitchell: The Clouds of Aristophanes.
De Quincey: Theory of Greek Tragedy (essay in “Literary Criticism”).
Brodribb: Demosthenes (Ancient Classics).
Collins: Plato (Ancient Classics).
Jowett: The Dialogues of Plato (4 vols.).
The Phædo of Plato (Wisdom Series).
Plato: The Apology of Socrates.
A Day in Athens with Socrates.
Plutarch: On the Dæmon of Socrates (essay in the “Morals”).
Grant: Xenophon (Ancient Classics).
Collins: Thucydides (Ancient Classics).
Life and Manners.
For a study of social life and manners in Greece, read or refer to the following—
Becker: Charicles (romance, with copious notes and excursuses).Mahaffy: Social Life in Greece.—— Old Greek Life.Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans.
Becker: Charicles (romance, with copious notes and excursuses).
Mahaffy: Social Life in Greece.
—— Old Greek Life.
Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans.
Special Reference.
Draper: History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (vol. i.).Clough:Plutarch’s Lives.Kaufman:The Young Folks’ Plutarch.White:Plutarch for Boys and Girls.It is good exercise, good medicine, the reading of Plutarch’s books,—good for to-day as it was in times preceding ours, salutary for all times.—A. Bronson Alcott.
Draper: History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (vol. i.).
Clough:Plutarch’s Lives.
Kaufman:The Young Folks’ Plutarch.
White:Plutarch for Boys and Girls.
It is good exercise, good medicine, the reading of Plutarch’s books,—good for to-day as it was in times preceding ours, salutary for all times.—A. Bronson Alcott.
II. ROMAN HISTORY.
For purposes of reference the following books, already mentioned in the course of Greek History, are indispensable—
Anthon:Classical Dictionary.Smith:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.Ginn & Heath:Classical Atlas.Murray:Manual of Mythology.
Anthon:Classical Dictionary.
Smith:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.
Ginn & Heath:Classical Atlas.
Murray:Manual of Mythology.
General Histories.
Smith: Smaller History of Rome.Merivale: Students’ History of Rome.Yonge:Young Folks’ History of Rome.Creighton: History of Rome.
Smith: Smaller History of Rome.
Merivale: Students’ History of Rome.
Yonge:Young Folks’ History of Rome.
Creighton: History of Rome.
For the period preceding the Empire—
Mommsen:History of Rome(4 vols.).Abbott:The History of Romulus.Church:Stories from Virgil.——Stories from Livy.Macaulay: Horatius (poem in “Lays of Ancient Rome”).Arnold: History of Rome.Ihne: Early Rome.Shakspeare: The Tragedy of Coriolanus (490B.C.).Macaulay: Virginia (poem in “Lays of Ancient Rome,” 459B.C.).Abbott:The History of Hannibal.Smith: Rome and Carthage.Dale: Regulus before the Senate (poem, 256B.C.).Beesly: The Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla.Mrs. Mitchell: Spartacus to the Gladiators (poem, 73B.C.).
Mommsen:History of Rome(4 vols.).
Abbott:The History of Romulus.
Church:Stories from Virgil.
——Stories from Livy.
Macaulay: Horatius (poem in “Lays of Ancient Rome”).
Arnold: History of Rome.
Ihne: Early Rome.
Shakspeare: The Tragedy of Coriolanus (490B.C.).
Macaulay: Virginia (poem in “Lays of Ancient Rome,” 459B.C.).
Abbott:The History of Hannibal.
Smith: Rome and Carthage.
Dale: Regulus before the Senate (poem, 256B.C.).
Beesly: The Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla.
Mrs. Mitchell: Spartacus to the Gladiators (poem, 73B.C.).
For the period of the Cæsars and the early Empire—
Merivale:History of the Romans(4 vols.).—— The Roman Triumvirates.Abbott:The History of Julius Cæsar.Addison: The Tragedy of Cato (drama).Froude: Cæsar; a Sketch.Trollope: Life of Cicero.Ben Jonson: Catiline (drama).Beaumont and Fletcher: The False One (drama).Abbott:The History of Cleopatra.Shakspeare: The Tragedy of Julius Cæsar.—— Antony and Cleopatra.Capes: The Early Empire.De Quincey: The Cæsars.Ben Jonson: The Poetaster (drama, time of Augustus).Wallace: Ben Hur (romance, time of Tiberius).Longfellow: The Divine Tragedy (poem).Ben Jonson: Sejanus, his Fall (drama, time of Tiberius).Becker: Gallus (romance, with notes, time of Tiberius).Schele De Vere: The Great Empress (romance, time of Nero).Abbott:The History of Nero.W. W. Story: Nero (drama).Hoffman: The Greek Maid at the Court of Nero (romance).Farrar: Seekers after God (Seneca, Epictetus).Wiseman: The Church of the Catacombs (romance, time of the Persecutions).Mrs. Charles: The Victory of the Vanquished (romance).Church and Brodribb: Pliny’s Letters (Ancient Classics).Bulwer: The Last Days of Pompeii (romance, time of Vespasian).Massinger: The Roman Actor (drama, time of Domitian).—— The Virgin Martyr (drama).Dickinson: The Seed of the Church.De Mille: Helena’s Household.Lockhart: Valerius.
Merivale:History of the Romans(4 vols.).
—— The Roman Triumvirates.
Abbott:The History of Julius Cæsar.
Addison: The Tragedy of Cato (drama).
Froude: Cæsar; a Sketch.
Trollope: Life of Cicero.
Ben Jonson: Catiline (drama).
Beaumont and Fletcher: The False One (drama).
Abbott:The History of Cleopatra.
Shakspeare: The Tragedy of Julius Cæsar.
—— Antony and Cleopatra.
Capes: The Early Empire.
De Quincey: The Cæsars.
Ben Jonson: The Poetaster (drama, time of Augustus).
Wallace: Ben Hur (romance, time of Tiberius).
Longfellow: The Divine Tragedy (poem).
Ben Jonson: Sejanus, his Fall (drama, time of Tiberius).
Becker: Gallus (romance, with notes, time of Tiberius).
Schele De Vere: The Great Empress (romance, time of Nero).
Abbott:The History of Nero.
W. W. Story: Nero (drama).
Hoffman: The Greek Maid at the Court of Nero (romance).
Farrar: Seekers after God (Seneca, Epictetus).
Wiseman: The Church of the Catacombs (romance, time of the Persecutions).
Mrs. Charles: The Victory of the Vanquished (romance).
Church and Brodribb: Pliny’s Letters (Ancient Classics).
Bulwer: The Last Days of Pompeii (romance, time of Vespasian).
Massinger: The Roman Actor (drama, time of Domitian).
—— The Virgin Martyr (drama).
Dickinson: The Seed of the Church.
De Mille: Helena’s Household.
Lockhart: Valerius.
The last three works are romances, depicting life and manners in the time of Trajan.
For the period of the later Empire and the decline of the Roman power—
Curteis: History of the Roman Empire (395-800).Gibbon:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.Ebers: The Emperor (romance, time of Hadrian).Capes: The Age of the Antonines.Watson: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.Hodgkin: Italy and her Invaders.William Ware: Zenobia (romance,A.D.266).—— Aurelian (romance,A.D.275).Ebers: Homo Sum (romance,A.D.330).Kouns: Arius the Libyan (romance,A.D.336).Aubrey De Vere: Julian the Apostate (drama,A.D.363).Beaumont and Fletcher: Valentinian (drama,A.D.375).Edward Everett: Alaric the Visigoth; and Mrs. Hemans: Alaric in Italy (poems,A.D.410).Kingsley: Hypatia (romance,A.D.415).Mrs. Charles: Conquering and to Conquer (romance,A.D.418).Mrs. Charles: Maid and Cleon (romance of Alexandria,A.D.425).Kingsley: Roman and Teuton.Church: The Beginning of the Middle Ages.
Curteis: History of the Roman Empire (395-800).
Gibbon:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Ebers: The Emperor (romance, time of Hadrian).
Capes: The Age of the Antonines.
Watson: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Hodgkin: Italy and her Invaders.
William Ware: Zenobia (romance,A.D.266).
—— Aurelian (romance,A.D.275).
Ebers: Homo Sum (romance,A.D.330).
Kouns: Arius the Libyan (romance,A.D.336).
Aubrey De Vere: Julian the Apostate (drama,A.D.363).
Beaumont and Fletcher: Valentinian (drama,A.D.375).
Edward Everett: Alaric the Visigoth; and Mrs. Hemans: Alaric in Italy (poems,A.D.410).
Kingsley: Hypatia (romance,A.D.415).
Mrs. Charles: Conquering and to Conquer (romance,A.D.418).
Mrs. Charles: Maid and Cleon (romance of Alexandria,A.D.425).
Kingsley: Roman and Teuton.
Church: The Beginning of the Middle Ages.
Literature.
Simcox: History of Roman Literature.Schlegel: History of Dramatic Literature.Collins: Livy (Ancient Classics).Mallock: Lucretius (Ancient Classics).Trollope: Cæsar (Ancient Classics).Collins: Cicero (Ancient Classics).Morris: The Æneid of Virgil.Collins: Virgil, Ovid, Lucian (three volumes of Ancient Classics).Epictetus: Selections from Epictetus.Jackson: Apostolic Fathers (Early Christian Literature Primers).
Simcox: History of Roman Literature.
Schlegel: History of Dramatic Literature.
Collins: Livy (Ancient Classics).
Mallock: Lucretius (Ancient Classics).
Trollope: Cæsar (Ancient Classics).
Collins: Cicero (Ancient Classics).
Morris: The Æneid of Virgil.
Collins: Virgil, Ovid, Lucian (three volumes of Ancient Classics).
Epictetus: Selections from Epictetus.
Jackson: Apostolic Fathers (Early Christian Literature Primers).
Special Reference.
Clough:Plutarch’s Lives.White:Plutarch for Boys and Girls.Kaufman:The Young Folks’ Plutarch.Coulange:The Ancient City.Draper:History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.Lecky:History of European Morals.Milman: History of Christianity.Stanley: History of the Eastern Church.Fisher: Beginnings of Christianity.Döllinger: The First Age of Christianity.Montalembert: The Monks of the West.Reber: History of Ancient Art.Hadley: Lectures on Roman Law.Maine: Ancient Law.
Clough:Plutarch’s Lives.
White:Plutarch for Boys and Girls.
Kaufman:The Young Folks’ Plutarch.
Coulange:The Ancient City.
Draper:History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.
Lecky:History of European Morals.
Milman: History of Christianity.
Stanley: History of the Eastern Church.
Fisher: Beginnings of Christianity.
Döllinger: The First Age of Christianity.
Montalembert: The Monks of the West.
Reber: History of Ancient Art.
Hadley: Lectures on Roman Law.
Maine: Ancient Law.
III. MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN HISTORY.
This course has been prepared with special reference to English history. The right-hand column, headed Collateral Reading, will assist students desiring to extend their reading so as to embrace the history of Continental Europe. The figures affixed to some of the titles indicate, as nearly as is thought necessary, the time covered or treated of by the work mentioned. Historical romances and other prose works of fiction are designated thus (*); dramas thus (†; other poems thus (‡).
Knight:History of England(9 vols.).
Yonge:Young Folks’ History of England.
Dickens:Child’s History of England.
Strickland:Lives of the Queens of England(7 vols.).
Pearson:Historical Atlas of England.
White: History of France.
Lewis: Students’ History of Germany.
Hunt: History of Italy.
Yonge:Young Folks’ History of France.
Kirkland:Short History of France.
Hallam: View of the State of the Middle Ages.
Green: History of the English People, book i.
Mrs. Armitage: The Childhood of the English Nation.
Green: The Making of England.
Palgrave: History of the Anglo-Saxons.
—— ‡Paulinus and Edwin.
Turner:History of the Anglo-Saxons.
Grant Allen: Anglo-Saxon Britain.
Abbott:Alfred the Great.
Hughes: Life of Alfred the Great.
Thierry: The Conquest of England by the Normans.
Abbott:William the Conqueror.
Green: The Conquest of England.
Freeman:History of the Norman Conquest of England.
Guizot:History of France, Vol. i.
James: History of Charlemagne.
Bryce: The Holy Roman Empire.
Cutts: Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages.
Johnson: The Normans in Europe.
Carlyle: The Early Kings of Norway.
Anderson: Norse Mythology.
Lettsom: ‡The Nibelungenlied.
Dasent: The Burnt Njal.
Baldwin: *The Story of Siegfried.
Mallet: Northern Antiquities.
Mrs. Charles: *Early Dawn (romance of the Roman occupation of Britain).
Cowper: ‡Boadicea.
Lanier: *The Boy’s King Arthur.
Lowell: ‡The Vision of Sir Launfal.
Tennyson: ‡The Idylls of the King.
Scott: ‡Sir Tristram.
Taylor: †Edwin the Fair.
Bulwer: *Harold, the Last of the Saxons (1066).
Tennyson: †Harold; a Drama.
Leighton: †The Sons of Godwin.
Kingsley: *Hereward, the Last of the Saxons.
James: History of Chivalry.
Bulfinch: *The Age of Chivalry.
Lanier: *Knightly Legends of Wales.
Ludlow: Popular Epics of the Middle Ages.
Bulfinch: Legends of Charlemagne.
Baldwin: *The Story of Roland.
Ariosto: ‡Orlando Furioso.
Lockhart: ‡Spanish Ballads.
Yonge: Christians and Moors in Spain.
Southey: Chronicles of the Cid.
Tennyson: ‡Godiva (1040).
Johnson: The Norman Kings and the Feudal System.
Green: History of the English People, books ii. and iii.
Palgrave: ‡Death in the Forest (1100).
Abbott:Richard I.
Hume: History of England.
Froude: Life and Times of Thomas Becket.
Aubrey de Vere: †St. Thomas of Canterbury.
James: Life of Richard Cœur de Lion.
Froude: A Bishop of the Twelfth Century (1190).
Stubbs: The Early Plantagenets.
Pyle:The Story of Robin Hood.
Scott: *The Talisman (1193).
—— *Ivanhoe (1194).
James: Forest Days (1214).
Shakspeare: †King John (1215).
Drayton: †The Barons’ Wars.
Guizot: History of France, vol. ii.
Cox: The Crusades.
Michaud: History of the Crusades.
Gray: The Children’s Crusade.
Gairdner: Early Chroniclers of Europe.
Oliphant: Francis of Assisi.
Adams: *Page, Squire, And Knight(1180).
Henty: *The Boy Knight(1188).
Scott: *The Betrothed.
Yonge: *Richard the Fearless.
James: *Philip Augustus.
Scott: *Count Robert of Paris.
Hale: *In his Name.
Pauli: Life of Simon de Montfort (1215).
Pearson: English History in the Fourteenth Century.
Yonge: *The Prince and the Page (1280).
Gray: ‡The Bard (1282).
Cunningham: *Sir Michael Scott (1300).
Porter: *The Scottish Chiefs.
Aguilar: *The Days of†‡ Bruce.
Campbell: ‡The Battle of Bannockburn.
Scott: ‡The Lord of the Isles (1307).
Marlowe: †Edward II. (1327).
Warburton: Edward III. (1327-77).
Abbott:Richard II.
Lanier:The Boy’s Froissart.
Southey: †Wat Tyler (1381)
Campbell: ‡Wat Tyler’s Address to the King.
Shakspeare: †Richard II. (1399)
Besant and Rice: Life of Whittington.
Percy: ‡The Ballad of Chevy Chase.
Gairdner: The Houses of Lancaster and York.
Edgar: The Wars of the Roses.
Green: History of the English People, book iv.
Shakspeare: †King Henry IV.
Kingsley: †The Saint’s Tragedy (1220).
Browning: ‡Sordello (1230).
Kington-Oliphant: Frederick II. (1250).
Guizot: History of France, vol. iii.
Hemans: †The Vespers of Palermo (1282).
Boker: †Francesca di Rimini (1300).
Schiller: †Wilhelm Tell.
Bulwer: Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes (1347).
Byron: †Marino Faliero (1355).
Jamison: Life of Bertrand du Guesclin.
Lord Houghton: ‡Bertrand du Guesclin (1380).
Hutton: James and Philip Van Artevelde.
Taylor: †Philip Van Artevelde (1382).
Mrs. Bray: Joan of Arc and the Times of Charles VII. of France.
Southey: ‡Joan of Arc.
Calvert: ‡The Maid of Orleans.
Yonge: *The Caged Lion (1406).
Towle: History of Henry V.
Browning: †Luria (1405).
Ewald: The Youth of Henry V. (in “Stories from the State Papers”).
Gairdner: The Lollards.
Drayton: ‡The Battle of Agincourt (1415).
Shakspeare: †King Henry VI.
Bulwer: *The Last of the Barons (1460).
Gairdner: History of Richard III.
—— The Paston Letters.
Shakspeare: †King Richard III.
Abbott:History of Richard III.
James: *Agincourt.
Kirk: History of Charles the Bold.
Scott: *Quentin Durward (1450).
Byron: †The two Foscari (1457).
Herz: ‡King Réné’s Daughter.
Scott: *Anne of Geierstein.
Victor Hugo: *The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Browning: †The Return of the Druses.
Macaulay: Essay on Machiavelli.
Birchall: England under the Tudors.
Green: History of the English People, books v. and vi.
Manning: The Household of Sir Thomas More.
Scott: †Marmion (1513).
James: *Darnley (1520).
Froude: History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth.
Mühlbach: *Henry VIII. and Catherine Parr.
Shakspeare: †King Henry VIII.
Geikie: History of the English Reformation.
Milman: †Anne Boleyn (1536).
Ainsworth: *Tower Hill (1538).
Ewald: Stories from the State Papers.
Mark Twain: *The Prince and the Pauper(1548).
Aubrey de Vere: †Mary Tudor.
Tennyson: †Queen Mary.
Scott: ‡Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Manning: *Colloquies of Edward Osborne (1554).
Rowe: †Lady Jane Grey (1554).
Ainsworth: *The Tower of London (1554).
Abbott:History of Queen Elizabeth.
Creighton: The Age of Elizabeth.
Scott: *Kenilworth (1560).
Macaulay: Essays on Lord Burleigh and Bacon.
Towle:Drake, the Sea King of Devon.
Abbott:History of Mary Queen of Scots.
Scott: *The Monastery and The Abbot.
Yonge: *Unknown to History (1587).
Swinburne: †Chastelard.
—— †Bothwell.
—— †Mary Stuart (1587).
Schiller: †Marie Stuart (1587).
Meline: Life of Mary Queen of Scots (Catholic).
Prescott: The History of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Anita George: Isabel the Catholic.
Irving: The Conquest of Granada.
—— The Alhambra.
Aguilar: *The Edict (1492).
Robertson: History of Charles V.
Seebohm: Era of the Protestant Revolution.
Fisher: History of the Reformation.
Yonge: *The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest (1519).
Mrs. Charles: *Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family.
George Eliot: *Romola.
Reade: *The Cloister and the Hearth.
Mrs. Stowe: *Agnes of Sorrento.
Mrs. Manning: *Good Old Times (1549).
Prescott: History of Philip II.
Motley: The Rise of the Dutch Republic.
—— History of the United Netherlands.
Yonge: *The Chaplet of Pearls (France, 1555).
Barrett: William the Silent (1533-1584).
Baird: Rise of the Huguenots.
Smiles: The Huguenots in France.
Abbott:History of Henry IV. of France.
Guizot: History of France, vol. iv.
Goethe: †Egmont (1568).
James: *The Man-at-Arms (1572).
Southey: ‡St. Bartholomew’s Day (1572).
Kingsley: *Westward Ho!
Wordsworth: ‡The White Doe of Rylstone.
Macaulay: ‡The Armada.
Tennyson: ‡The Revenge.
Towle:Sir Walter Ralegh.
Landor: Elizabeth and Burleigh (in “Imaginary Conversations”).
Macaulay: ‡Ivry (1590).
Goethe: †Torquato Tasso (1590).
Trollope: *Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar.
Green: History of the English People, book vii.
Cordery and Phillpott: King and Commonwealth.
Gardiner: The Puritan Revolution.
Ainsworth: *Guy Fawkes (1605).
Scott: *The Fortunes of Nigel.
Ainsworth: *The Spanish Match (1620).
Abbott:History of Charles I.
Letitia E. Landon: ‡The Covenanters (1638).
Marryat: *The Children of the New Forest.
Scott: ‡Rokeby (1644).
—— *Legend of Montrose (1646).
Praed: *Marston Moor (1644).
Carlyle: History of Oliver Cromwell.
Robson:Life of Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642).
James: *Richelieu.
Bulwer: *Richelieu.
Manzoni: *The Betrothed (1628).
Goethe: ‡The Destruction of Magdeburg.
Schiller: †Wallenstein (1634).
Topelius: *Times of Gustaf Adolf.
Gardiner: History of the Thirty Years’ War.
Schiller: History of the Thirty Years’ War.
Motley: Life of John of Barneveld.
Pardoe: *Louis XIV. and the Court of France.
James: Louis XIV.
Guizot: History of the English Revolution.
Goldwin Smith: Three English Statesmen.
Macaulay: ‡The Cavalier’s March to London (1651).
Masson: Life and Times of John Milton.
Yonge: *The Pigeon Pie; a Tale of Roundhead Times.
Shorthouse: *John Inglesant.
James: *The Cavalier (1651).
Butler: ‡Hudibras.
Scott: *Woodstock.
Marvell: ‡Blake’s Victory (1657).
Abbott:History of Charles II.
Dryden: ‡Annus Mirabilis (1666).
Birchall: England under the Stuarts.
Fox: Life of James II.
Ainsworth: *James II.
Guizot: History of France, vol. v.
Abbott:History of Louis XIV.
Manning: *Idyl of the Alps.
Bungener:Bourdaloue And Louis XIV.
Topelius: *Times of Battle and Rest.
James: *Russell.
Macaulay: History of England (1685-1702).
—— Essay on Sir William Temple.
Aytoun: ‡The Widow of Glencoe (1692).
Hale: The Fall of the Stuarts.
Morris: The Age of Anne.
Coxe: Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough.
Scott: *Old Mortality.
—— *The Bride of Lammermoor.
Defoe: *Memoirs of a Cavalier.
—— *History of the Great Plague in London.
Addison: The Spectator.
Thackeray: *Henry Esmond.
Blackmore: *Lorna Doone.
Addison: *The Battle of Blenheim (1704).
Pepys: Diary (1659-1703).
Green: History of the English People, book viii.
Macaulay: ‡Song of the Huguenots (1685).
Browning: Hervé Riel (1692).
Abbott:History of Peter the Great.
Schuyler: History of Peter the Great.
Mahon: War of the Spanish Succession.
Mühlbach: *Prince Eugene and his Times.
Topelius: *Times of Charles XII.
Voltaire: History of Charles XII.
Martineau: *Messrs. Vandeput and Snoek (1695).
Lady Jackson: The Old Régime (Louis XIV. and XV.).
Macaulay: Essay on the War of the Succession in Spain.
Lecky: History of England in the Eighteenth Century.
Green: History of the English People, book ix.
Scott: *Rob Roy (1715).
—— *The Heart of Mid-Lothian.
Thackeray: Lectures on the Four Georges.
Stephen: History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century.
Macaulay: Essays on Lord Clive and Lord Chatham.
Froude: The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century.
Campbell: ‡Lochiel’s Warning.
Scott: *Waverley (1745).
Moir: ‡The Battle of Prestonpans (1745).
Smollett: ‡The Tears of Scotland.
Goldsmith: *The Vicar of Wakefield.
Southey: Life and Times of John Wesley.
Mrs. Charles: *Diary of Kitty Trevylyan.
Mitford: *Our Village.
Edgeworth: *Castle Rackrent.
Thackeray: *The Virginians (1775).
Scott: *Guy Mannering.
Dickens: *Barnaby Rudge (1780).
Macaulay: Essays on Warren Hastings, William Pitt, and Barère.
Goldwin Smith: Three English Statesmen.
Trevelyan: Early History of Charles James Fox.
Wade: Letters of Junius.
Morley: Edmund Burke, a Historical Sketch.
Blackmore: *The Maid of Sker.
George Eliot: *Adam Bede.
Cooper: *Wing and Wing.
Lever: *Charles O’Malley.
Mrs. Charles: *Against the Stream.
Thackeray: *Vanity Fair.
Topelius: *Times of Frederick I. (1721).
Bungener:Louis XV. and his Times.
Helps: Ivan de Biron (1740).
Macaulay: Essay on Frederick the Great.
Abbott:History of Marie Antoinette.
Davis: *Fontenoy (1745).
Longman: Frederick the Great and the Seven Years’ War.
Carlyle: Life of Frederick the Great.
Yonge: Life of Marie Antoinette.
Mühlbach: *Frederick the Great and his Family.
Topelius: *Times of Linnæus.
Guizot: History of France, vol. vi.
Topelius: *Times of Alchemy.
Taine: The Ancient Régime.
Abbott: The French Revolution of 1789.
——History of the Empress Josephine.
——History of Madame Roland.
——History of Queen Hortense.
Alison: History of Europe (1789-1815), abridged by Gould.
Taine: Origins of Contemporary France.
Van Laun: The French Revolutionary Epoch.
Adams: Democracy and Monarchy in France.
Victor Hugo: *Ninety-Three.
Coleridge: ‡Destruction of the Bastile.
Renaud: ‡The Last Banquet.
Erckmann-Chatrian: *Year One of the Republic.
Dickens: *A Tale of Two Cities.
Blackmore: *Alice Lorraine.
Trollope: *La Vendée.
Saintine: *Picciola.
Maginn: *Whitehall.
Palgrave: ‡Trafalgar (1805).
Robert Buchanan: †The Shadow of the Sword.
Kingsley: *Alton Locke.
Disraeli: *Sybil.
Southey: ‡The Battle of Algiers (1815).
McCarthy: History of our own Times.
Martineau: History of the Thirty Years’ Peace.
Carlyle: Latter-Day Pamphlets.
Disraeli: *Lothair.
Kinglake: The Invasion of the Crimea.
Fritz Reuter: *In the Year Thirteen.
Erckmann-Chatrian: *The Conscript; The Invasion of France in 1814; and Waterloo.
Byron: ‡The Battle of Waterloo.
Moore: *The Fudge Family in Paris.
Martineau: *French Wine and Politics.
Victor Hugo: *Les Misérables.
Guizot: France under Louis Philippe.
Victor Hugo: The History of a Crime.
Bulwer: *The Parisians.
Murray: *The Member for Paris.
Forbes: The Franco-German War.