Chapter 14

{262b} I contend that while most of the poets are self-contained in a single volume, Shakspere's plays are best enjoyed as separate entities. Certainly each of them has a library attached to it, and it is quite profitable to read Hamlet in Mr. Horace Howard Furness's edition (Lippincott) with a multitude of criticisms of the play bound up with the text of Hamlet. But Hamlet should be read first in the Temple Shakspere (Dent) or in the Arden Shakspere (Methuen). To this last there is an admirable introduction by Professor Dowden.

{262c} Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ should be read in Mr. Alfred W. Pollard's edition, which forms two volumes of the "Eversley Library" (Macmillan). The "Tales" may be obtained in cheaper form in the _Chaucer_ of the Aldine Poets (Bell), of which I have grateful memories, having first read "Chaucer" in these little volumes. The enthusiast will obtain the Complete Works of Chaucer edited for the Clarendon Press by Professor W. W. Skeat.

{263a} FitzGerald's _Omar Khayyam_ can be obtained in its four versions, each of which has its merits, only from the Macmillans, who publish it in many forms. The edition in the Golden Treasury Series may be particularly commended. The present writer has written an introduction to a sixpenny edition of the first version. It is published by William Heinemann.

{263b} Goethe's _Faust_ has been translated in many forms. Certainly Anster's version (Sampson Low) is the most vivacious. Anna Swanwick, Sir Theodore Martin and Bayard Taylor's translations have about equal merit.

{263c} Shelley's _Poetical Works_ should be read in the one volume issued in green cloth by the Macmillans, with an introduction by Edward Dowden, or in the Oxford Poets (Henry Froude), with an introduction by H. Buxton Forman, but perhaps the best edition is that of the Clarendon Press with an introduction by Thomas Hutchinson. Mr. Forman's library edition of _Shelley's Complete Works_ is the desire of all collectors.

{263d} _Byron's Poetical Works_, edited by Ernest Coleridge, form seven volumes of John Murray's edition of Byron's _Works_ in thirteen volumes. There is not a good one-volume Byron. I particularly commend the three- volume edition (George Newnes).

{264a} Wordsworth may be read in his entirety in the sixteen volumes of _Prose and Poetry_ edited by William Knight in the Eversley Library (Macmillan). The same publisher issues an admirable _Wordsworth_ in one volume, edited, with an introduction by John Morley. But the first approach to Wordsworth's verse should be made through Matthew Arnold's _Select Poems_ in the Golden Treasury Series (Macmillan).

{264b} _Keats's Works_ are issued in one volume in the Oxford Poets (Froude), and in five shilling volumes by Gowans and Gray of Glasgow. Mr. Buxton Forman's annotations to this cheap edition exceed in value those attached to his more expensive "Library Edition," which, however, as with the _Shelley_, in eight volumes, is out of print.

{264c} The four volumes of Burns, with an introduction by W. E. Henley, are pleasant to read. They are published by Jack, of Edinburgh. The best single-volume _Burns_ is that in the Globe Library (Macmillan), with an introduction by Alexander Smith.

{264d} There is no rival to the one-volume edition of _Coleridge's Poems_, with an introduction by J. Dykes Campbell, published by Macmillan. Mr. Dykes Campbell's biography of Coleridge should also be read. The prose works of Coleridge are obtainable in Bohn's Library. The fortunate book lover has many in Pickering editions.

{264e} _Cowper's Complete Works_ are acquired for a modest sum of the second-hand bookseller in Southey's sixteen-volume edition. The two best one-volume issues of the _Poems_ are the Globe Library Edition with an introduction by Canon Benham (Macmillan), and _Cowper's Complete Poems_ with an introduction by J. C. Bailey (Methuen). The best of the letters are contained in a volume in the Golden Treasury Series, with an introduction by Mrs. Oliphant. _The Complete Letters of Cowper_, edited by Thomas Wright, have been published by Hodder & Stoughton in four volumes.

{265a} _Crabbe's Works_, in eight volumes, with biography by his son, may be obtained very cheaply from the second-hand book seller. With all the merits of both _Works_ and _Life_ they have not been reprinted satisfactorily. The only good modern edition of _Crabbe's Poems_ is in three volumes published by the Cambridge University Press, edited by A. W. Ward.

{265b} The best one-volume _Tennyson_ is issued by the Macmillans, who still hold certain copyrights. The Library Edition of _Tennyson_, with the Biography included in the twelve volumes, is a desirable acquisition.

{265c} Not all the sixteen volumes of the Library Edition of _Browning_ pay for perusal. The most convenient form is that of the two-volume edition (Smith, Elder & Co.), with notes by Augustine Birrell.

{265d} _Milton's Poetical Works_ as annotated by David Masson (Macmillan) make the standard library edition, and the same publishers have given us the best one-volume _Milton_ in the Globe Library, with an introduction by Professor Masson, Milton's one effective biographer.

{266a} _The Arabian Nights' Entertainments_ is first introduced to us all as a children's story-book. Tennyson has placed on record his own early memories:--

"In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid."

But the collector of the hundred best books will do well to read the _Arabian Nights_ in the translation by Edward William Lane, edited by Stanley Lane Poole, in 4 volumes, for George Bell & Sons.

{266b} The most satisfactory translation of Cervantes's great romance is that made by John Ormesby, revised and edited by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, published by Gowans & Gray in 4 shilling volumes.

{266c} _The Pilgrim's Progress_ is presented in a hundred forms. The present writer first read it in a penny edition. It should be possessed by the book-lover in a volume of the Cambridge English Classics, in which _Grace Abounding_ and _The Pilgrim's Progress_ are given together, edited by Dr. John Brown, and published by the Cambridge University Press.

{266d} Schoolboys, notwithstanding Macaulay, usually know but few good books, but every schoolboy knows Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ in one form or another. The maker of a library will prefer it as a Volume of Defoe's _Works_ (J. M. Dent), or as Volume VII of Defoe's _Novels and Miscellaneous Works_ (Bell & Sons). There are many good shilling editions of the book by itself, but Defoe should be read in many of his works and particularly in _Moll Flanders_.

{267a} As with _Robinson Crusoe_, _Gulliver's Travels_ can be obtained in many cheap forms, but it is well that it should be obtained as Volume VIII of _Swift's Prose Works_, published in Bohn's Libraries by George Bell & Sons. There has not been a really good edition of Swift's works since Scott's monumental book.

{267b} _Clarissa_ should be read in nine of the twenty volumes of Richardson's Novels, published by Chapman & Hall--a very dainty well-printed book. "I love these large, still books," said Lord Tennyson.

{267c} The greatest of all novels, _Tom Jones_, is obtainable in several Library Editions of Fielding's _Works_. A cheap well-printed form is that of the _Works of Henry Fielding_ in 12 volumes, published by Gay & Bird. Here _The Story of Tom Jones a Foundling_ is in 4 volumes. The book is in 2 volumes in Bohn's Library--an excellent edition.

{267d} Johnson's _Rasselas_ has frequently been reprinted, but there is no edition for a book-lover at present in the bookshops. It is included in _Classic Tales_ in a volume of Bohn's Standard Library. The wise course is to look out for one of the earlier editions with copper plates that are constantly to be found on second-hand bookstalls. But Johnson's _Works_ should be bought in a fine octavo edition.

{268a} Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ should be possessed in the edition which Mr. Hugh Thomson has illustrated and Mr. Austin Dobson has edited for the Macmillans. There is a good edition of Goldsmith's _Works_ in Bohn's Library.

{268b} Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_ is also a volume for the second- hand bookstall, although that and the equally fine _Tristram Shandy_ may be obtained in many pretty forms. I have two editions of Sterne's books, but they are both fine old copies.

{268c} There are two very good editions of Peacock's delightful romances. _Nightmare Abbey_ forms a volume of J. M. Dent's edition in 9 volumes, edited by Dr. Garnett; and the whole of Peacock's remarkable stories are contained in a single volume of Newnes' "Thin Paper Classics."

{268d} Sir Walter Scott's novels are available in many forms equally worthy of a good library. The best is the edition published by Jack of Edinburgh. The Temple Library of Scott (J. M. Dent) may be commended for those who desire pocket volumes, while Mr. Andrew Lang's Introductions give an added value to an edition published by the Macmillans, Scott's twenty-eight novels are indispensable to every good library, and every reader will have his own favourite.

{268e} Balzac's novels are obtainable in a good translation by Ellen Marriage, edited by George Saintsbury, published in New York by the Macmillan Company and in London by J. M. Dent.

{269a} A translation of Dumas' novels in 48 volumes is published by Dent. _The Three Musketeers_ is in 2 volumes. There are many cheap one volume editions.

{269b} Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_ is pleasantly read in the edition of his novels published by J. M. Dent. His original publishers, Smith, Elder & Co., issue his works in many forms.

{269c} The best edition of Charlotte Bronte's _Villette_ is that in the "Haworth Edition," published by Smith, Elder & Co., with an Introduction by Mrs. Humphry Ward.

{269d} Charles Dickens' novels, of which _David Copperfield_ is generally pronounced to be the best, should be obtained in the "Oxford India Paper Dickens" (Chapman & Hall and Henry Frowde). A serviceable edition is that published by the Macmillans, with Introductions by Charles Dickens's son, but that edition still fails of _Our Mutual Friend_ and _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, of which the copyright is not yet exhausted.

{269e} Anthony Trollope's novels are being reissued, in England by John Lane and George Bell & Sons, and in America in a most attractive form by Dodd, Mead & Co. All three publishers have a good edition of _Barchester Towers_, Trollope's best novel.

{269f} Boccaccio's _Decameron_ is in my library in many forms--in 3 volumes of the Villon Society's publications, translated by John Payne; in 2 handsome volumes issued by Laurence & Bullen; and in the Extra Volumes of Bohn's Library. There is a pretty edition available published by Gibbons in 3 volumes.

{270a} Emily Bronte's _Wuthering Heights_ forms a volume of the Haworth Edition of the Bronte novels, published by Smith, Elder & Co. It has an introduction by Mrs. Humphry Ward.

{270b} Charles Reade's _Cloister and the Hearth_ is available in many forms. The pleasantest is in 4 volumes issued by Chatto & Windus, with an Introduction by Sir Walter Besant. There is a remarkable shilling edition issued by Collins of Glasgow.

{270c} Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables_ may be most pleasantly read in the 10 volumes, translated by M. Jules Gray, published by J. M. Dent & Co.

{270d} Mrs. Gaskell's _Cranford_ can be obtained in the six volume edition of that writer's works published by Smith, Elder & Co., with Introductions by Dr. A. W. Ward; in a volume illustrated by Hugh Thomson, with an Introduction by Mrs. Ritchie, published by the Macmillans, or in the World's Classics (Henry Frowde), where there is an additional chapter entitled, "The Cage at Cranford."

{270e} The translation of George Sand's _Consuelo_ in my library is by Frank H. Potter, 4 volumes, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.

{270f} Lever's _Charles O'Malley_ I have as volumes of the _Complete Works_ published by Downey. There is a pleasant edition in Nelson's "Pocket Library."

{271a} Macaulay's _History of England_ is available in many attractive forms from the original publishers, the Longmans. There is a neat thin paper edition for the pocket in 5 volumes issued by Chatto & Windus.

{271b} For Carlyle's _Past and Present_ I recommend the Centenary Edition of Carlyle's _Works_, published by Chapman & Hall. There is an annotated edition of _Sartor Resartus_ by J. A. S. Barrett (A. & C. Black), two annotated editions of _The French-Revolution_, one by Dr. Holland Rose (G. Bell & Sons), and an other by C. R. L. Fletcher, 3 volumes (Methuen), and an annotated edition of _The Cromwell Letters_, edited by S. C. Lomax, 3 volumes (Methuen). No publisher has yet attempted an annotated edition of _Past and Present_, but Sir Ernest Clarke's translation of _Jocelyn of Bragelond_ (Chatto & Windus) may be commended as supplemental to Carlyle's most delightful book.

{271c} Motley's _Works_ are available in 9 volumes of a Library Edition published by John Murray. A cheaper issue of the _Dutch Republic_ is that in 3 volumes of the World's Classics, to which I have contributed a biographical introduction.

{271d} For many years the one standard edition of _Gibbon_ was that published by John Murray, in 8 volumes, with notes by Dean Milman and others. It has been superseded by Professor Bury's annotated edition in 7 volumes (Methuen).

{272a} Plutarch's _Lives_, translated by A. Stewart and George Long, form 4 volumes of Bohn's Standard Library. There is a handy volume for the pocket in Dent's Temple Classics in 10 volumes, translated by Sir Thomas North.

{272b} Montaigne's _Essays_ I have in three forms; in the Tudor Translations (David Nutt), where there is an Introduction to the 6 volumes of Sir Thomas North's translation by the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham; in Dent's Temple Classics, where John Florio's translation is given in 5 volumes. A much valued edition is that in 3 volumes, the translation by Charles Cotton, published by Reeves & Turner in 1877.

{272c} Steele's essays were written for the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_ side by side with those of Addison. The best edition of _The Spectator_ is that published in 8 volumes, edited by George A. Aitken for Nimmo, and of _The Tatler_ that published in 4 volumes, edited also by Mr. Aitken for Duckworth & Co.

{272d} Lamb's _Essays of Elia_ can be read in a volume of the Eversley Library (Macmillan), edited by Canon Ainger. The standard edition of Lamb's _Works_ is that edited by Mr. E. V. Lucas, in 7 volumes, for Methuen. Mr. Lucas's biography of Lamb has superseded all others.

{272e} Thomas de Quincey's _Opium Eater_ may be obtained as a volume of Newnes's Thin Paper Classics, in the World's Classics, or in Dent's Everyman's Library. But the _Complete Works_ of De Quincey, in 16 volumes, edited by David Mason and published by A. & C. Black, should be in every library.

{273a} William Hazlitt never received the treatment he deserved until Mr. J. M. Dent issued in 1903 his _Collected Works_, in 13 volumes, edited by A. R. Waller and Arnold Glover. Of cheap reprints of Hazlitt I commend _The Spirit of the Age_, _Winterslow_ and _Sketches and Essays_, three separate volumes of the World's Classics (Frowde).

{273b} George Borrow's _Lavengro_ should only be read in Mr. John Murray's edition, as it there contains certain additional and valuable matter gathered from the original manuscript by William I. Knapp. The Library Edition of Borrow, in 6 volumes (Murray), may be particularly commended.

{273c} Emerson's _Complete Works_ are published by the Routledges in 4 volumes, in which _Representative Men_ may be found in Vol. II. Some may prefer the Eversley Library _Emerson_, which has an Introduction by John Morley. There are many cheap editions of about equal value.

{273d} Lander's _Imaginary Conversations_ form six volumes of the complete _Landor_, edited by Charles G. Crump, and published in 10 volumes by J. M. Dent.

{273e} Matthew Arnold's _Essays in Criticism_ is published by Macmillan. It also forms Vol. III of the Library Edition of his _Works_ in 15 volumes. A "Second Series" has less significance.

{273f} _The Works of Herodotus_, published by the Macmillans, translated by George C. Macaulay, is the best edition for the general reader. Canon Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, published by John Murray, has had a longer life, but is now only published in an abridged form.

{274a} James Howell's _Familiar Letters_, or _Epistolae Ho Elianae_, should be read in the edition published in 2 volumes by David Nutt, with an Introduction by Joseph Jacobs.

{274b} _The History of Civilization_, by Henry Thomas Buckle, is in my library in the original 2 volumes published by Parker in 1857. It is now issued in 3 volumes in Longman's Silver Library, and in 3 volumes in the World's Classics.

{274c} _The History of Tacitus_ should be read in the translation by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodripp. It is published by the Macmillans.

{274d} _Our Village_, by Mary Russell Mitford, is a collection of essays which in their completest form may be obtained in two volumes of Bohn's Library (Bell). The essential essays should be possessed in the edition published by the Macmillans--_Our Village_, by Mary Russell Mitford, with an Introduction by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, and one hundred illustrations by Hugh Thomson.

{274e} Green's _Short History of the English People_ is published by the Macmillans in 1 volume, or illustrated in 4 volumes. The book was enlarged, but disimproved, under the title of _A History of the English People_, in 4 volumes, uniform with the _Conquest of England_ and the _Making of England_ by the same author.

{275a} Taine's _Ancient Regime_ is a good introduction to the conditions which made the French Revolution. It forms the first volume of _Les Origines de la France Contemporaine_, and may be read in a translation by John Durand, published by Dalby, Isbister & Co. in 1877.

{275b} _The Life of Napoleon_ has been written by many pens, in our own day most competently by Dr. Holland Rose (2 vols. Bell); but a good account of the Emperor, indispensable for some particulars and an undoubted classic, is that by de Bourrienne, Napoleon's private secretary, published in an English translation, in 4 volumes, by Bentley in 1836.

{275c} _Democracy in America_, by Alexis de Tocqueville, may be had in a translation by Henry Reeve, published in 2 volumes by the Longmans. Read also _A History of the United States_ by C. Benjamin Andrews, 2 volumes (Smith, Elder), and above all the _American Commonwealth_, by James Bryce, 2 volumes (Macmillan).

{275d} _The Compleat Angler_ of Isaac Walton may be purchased in many forms. I have a fine library edition edited by that prince of living anglers, Mr. R. B. Marston, called The Lea and Dove Edition, this being the 100th edition of the book (Sampson Low, 1888). I have also an edition edited by George A. B. Dewar, with an Introduction by Sir Edward Grey and Etchings by William Strang and D. Y. Cameron, 2 volumes (Freemantle), and a 1 volume edition published by Ingram & Cooke in the Illustrated Library.

{276a} There are many editions of Gilbert White's _Natural History of Selbourne_ to be commended. Three that are in my library are (1) edited with an Introduction and Notes by L. C. Miall and W. Warde Fowler (Methuen); (2) edited with Notes by Grant Allen, illustrated by Edmund H. New (John Lane); (3) rearranged and classified under subjects by Charles Mosley (Elliot Stock).

{276b} Of _Boswell's Life of Johnson_ there are innumerable editions. The special enthusiast will not be happy until he possesses Dr. Birkbeck Hill's edition in 6 volumes (Clarendon Press). The most satisfactory 1 volume edition is that published on thin paper by Henry Frowde. I have in my library also a copy of the first edition of _Boswell_ in 2 volumes. It was published by Henry Baldwin in 1791.

{276c} The best edition of Lockhart's _Life of Scott_ is that published in 10 volumes by Jack of Edinburgh. Readers should beware of abridgments, although one of these was made by Lockhart himself. The whole eighty-five chapters are worth reading, even in the 1 volume edition published by A. & C. Black.

{276d} _Pepys's Diary_ can be obtained in Bohn's Library or in Newnes' Thin Paper Classics, but Pepys should only be read under Mr. H. B. Wheatley's guidance. A cheap edition of his book, in 8 volumes, has recently been published by George Bell & Sons. I have No. 2 of the large paper edition of this book, No. 1 having gone to Pepys's own college of Brazenose, where the Pepys cypher is preserved.

{277a} Until recently one knew Walpole's _Letters_ only through Peter Cunningham's edition, in 9 volumes (Bentley), and this has still exclusive matter for the enthusiast, Cunningham's Introduction to wit; but the Clarendon Press has now published Walpole's _Letters_, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee, in 16 volumes, or in 8. Here are to be found more letters than in any previous edition.

{277b} _The Memoirs of Count de Gramont_, by Anthony, Count Hamilton, can be obtained in splendid type, unannotated, in an edition published by Arthur L. Humphreys. A well-illustrated and well-edited edition is that published by Bickers of London and Scribner of New York, edited by Allan Fea.

{277c} Gray's _Letters_, with poems and life, form 4 volumes in Macmillan's Eversley Library, edited by Edmund Gosse.

{277d} You can obtain Southey's _Nelson_, originally written for Murray's Pocket Library as a publisher's commission, in one well-printed volume, with Introduction by David Hannay, published by William Heinemann. It should, however, be supplemented in the _Life_ by Captain Mahan (2 volumes, Sampson Low & Co.), or by Professor Laughton's _Nelson and His Companion in Arms_ (George Allen).

{277e} Moore's _Life and Letters of Byron_ is published by John Murray in 6 volumes. It is best purchased second-hand in an old set. Moore's book must be supplemented by the 6 volumes of _Correspondence_ edited by Rowland Prothero for Mr. Murray.

{278a} Sir George Trevelyan says in his _Early History of Charles James Fox_ that Hogg's _Life of Shelley_ is "perhaps the most interesting book in our language that has never been republished." The reproach has been in some slight measure removed by a cheap reprint in small type issued by the Routledges in 1906. The reader should, however, secure a copy of the first edition, 2 volumes, 1857. Professor Dowden, in his _Life of Shelley_, 1886, uses the book freely.

{278b} "What is the best book you have ever read?" Emerson is said to have asked George Eliot when she was about twenty-two years of age and residing, unknown, near Coventry. "Rousseau's _Confessions_," was the reply. "I agree with you," Emerson answered. But the book should not be read in a translation. The completest translation is one in 2 volumes published by Nicholls. There is a more abridged translation by Gibbons in 4 volumes.

{278c} _The Life of Carlyle_, by James Anthony Froude, which created so much controversy upon its publication, is worthy of a cheap edition, which does not, however, seem to be forthcoming. The book appeared in 4 volumes, _The First Forty Years_ in 1882 and _Life in London_ in 1884. It had been preceded by _Reminiscences_ in 1881. Every one should read the _Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle_, 3 volumes, 1883. All the 9 volumes are published by the Longmans.