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James Baldwin, The Book Lover: A Guide to the Best Reading [1910]

134 entries: 98 monographical, 36 otherwise

Unranked—arranged alphabetically by author

James Baldwin's The Book Lover was published in fifteen editions, 1884-1910. The list presented here is derived from two chapters of that book, 'Books of Power' and 'On the Choice of Books'. The list found in the latter chapter is short and mostly overlaps with that of the former. The latter adds the Blackmoore and Irving entries (which have been interfiled with the rest, conforming to Baldwin's arrangment of the works alphabetically by author) and specifies Paradise Lost for Milton, Heroes for Carlyle, and Oration on the Crown for Demosthenes; thus, those works' separate entries. Baldwin defines Books of Power as such: "the works which embody the best thoughts of the noblest thinkers of all countries and ages," adding, "in them we perceive the crystallization of human wisdom as it has been made manifest through the grandest intellects of all nations; by the reading of them our minds are lifted into closer companionship with the invisible, the sublime, the everlasting. Such books are for the building up of a lofty character, for the turning of the soul inward upon itself and the fitting of it for greater, stronger, worthier achievements."

The following chapters of The Book Lover contain longer lists of books: 'Books Relating to Ancient History', 'Books Relating to Modern History', 'Geography and Travels', 'Philosophy and Religion', 'Political Economy and the Science of Government', and 'On the Practical Study of English Literature'. Also, in his chapter on the John Lubbock list and the responses it engendered, Baldwin provides a list of one-hundred "works suitable for a young person's library" and another hundred on "nature and nature study." These are excluded on the same grounds as Hutchinson's The World's Best Books and English and Pope's What to Read (both noted at the Excluded Lists page): they are more like directories suggesting books on certain subjects for the reader to choose from, instead of a lists of books of general literary value or historical significance (see the Guidelines for more information on the criteria used to select the lists collected at Greater Books). The Book Lover is similar to The List of Books [1981] in that both provide subject-specific lists in addition to a general list (again, in Baldwin's case, two general lists).

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  1. Kitab alf Laylah Wa-Laylah

  2. The Thousand and One Nights; The Arabian Nights
    Ninth-Fifteenth centuries—Arabic

    *Lubock*
  3. Ludovico Ariosto
    Orlando Furioso
    published in part, 1516; revised 1521; published in its entirety, 1532—Italian

    • Aristophanes

    Plays
    late Fifth Century B C—Greek

    • Aristotle

  4. Selected works
    Fourth Century B C—Greek

  5. Francis Bacon

  6. Essays: Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene and Allowed
    1597; expanded 1612; expanded and retitled Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, 1625—English

    --
  7. The Bible

  8. —Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  9. R D Blackmoore

  10. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
    originally anonymously published 1869—English

  11. James Boswell

  12. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
    1791—English

  13. Thomas Browne

  14. Religio Medici
    1643—English

  15. John Bunyan
    The Pilgrim's Progress From This World to That Which Is to Come
    1678—English

    • Edmund Burke

    "Orations and political essays"
    late Eighteenth Century—English

    • Robert Burns

  16. Poems
    late Eighteenth Century—English

  17. Robert Burton
    The Anatomy of Melancholy
    1621; revised through fifth edition—English

    Thomas Carlyle
    • Essays

  18. Nineteenth Century—English

  19. Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History

  20. 1842—English

  21. Miguel de Cervantes
    El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
    Don Quixote
    originally published in two volumes, 1605 and 1615—Spanish


    Geoffrey Chaucer
    • Selected works

  22. late Fourteenth Century—English

  23. Canterbury Tales
    1478—English

    Marcus Tullius Cicero
    • Speeches

  24. First Century B C—Latin

  25. De Officiis

  26. written 44 B C—Latin

  27. Cato Major de Senectute

  28. written 44 B C—Latin

  29. Laelius de Amicitia
    written 44 B C—Latin

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    • 'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere'

    part of Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems, 1798; revised for inclusion in Sibylline Leaves, 1817—English

    • 'Christabel'

    part of Christabel; Kubla Khan, a Vision in a Dream; The Pains of Sleep, 1816—English

    • 'Genevieve'

  30. originally entitled 'Effusion XVII', published Nov. 1794 in the Cambridge Intelligencer; included in Poems on Various Subjects, 1796; retitled 'Genevieve' for inclusion in Poems, 1803—English

  31. Dante

  32. La Divina Commedia
    The Divine Comedy
    originally entitled La Commedia; written ca. 1308-21—Italian


  33. Daniel Defoe
    The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner
    originally anonymously published 1719—English

    Demosthenes
    • Speeches

  34. Fourth Century B C—English

  35. On the Crown
    330 B C—Greek

    Charles Dickens
    • Novels

  36. Nineteenth Century—English

  37. The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)

  38. originally published serially May 1849-Nov. 1850—English

  39. Dealings With the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation

  40. originally published serially Oct. 1846-Apr. 1848—English

  41. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

  42. originally published serially Mar. 1838-Sep. 1839 under the pseudonym, Boz—English

  43. The Old Curiosity Shop

  44. originally published serially Apr. 1840-Nov. 1841 in Master Humphrey's Clock under the pseudonym, Boz—English

  45. A Tale of Two Cities

  46. originally published serially Apr.-Nov. 1859 in All the Year Round—English

  47. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (The Pickwick Papers)
    originally published serially Apr. 1836-Nov. 1837 under the pseudonym, Boz—English

    • John Dryden

    Poems
    Seventeenth Century—English

    George Eliot
    • Novels

  48. Nineteenth Century—English

  49. Adam Bede

  50. 1859—English

  51. The Mill on the Floss

  52. 1860—English

  53. Romola

  54. originally published serially Jul. 1862-Aug. 1863 in Cornhill Magazine—English

  55. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

  56. originally published serially Dec. 1871-Dec. 1872—English

  57. Daniel Deronda
    1876—English

    • Ralph Waldo Emerson

  58. Essays
    Nineteenth Century—English

  59. Epictetus
    Diatribai
    Discourses
    compiled by Arrian; Second Century—Greek


    • Euripides

  60. Plays
    late Fifth Century B C—Greek

  61. Henry Fielding

  62. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
    1749—English

  63. Jean Froissart

  64. Chroniques
    written 1369-1400—French

  65. Edward Gibbon

  66. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    originally published in six volumes: first, 1776; second-third, 1781; fourth-sixth, 1788—English

  67. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  68. Faust
    originally published in two volumes: first, Faust. Der Tragödie Erster Teil, published in part, 1790; in its entirey, 1808; revised 1829; second, Faust. Der Tragödie Zweiter Teil, 1832—German

  69. Oliver Goldsmith

  70. The Vicar of Wakefield
    1766—English

    Nathaniel Hawthorne
  71. The Scarlet Letter

  72. 1850—English

  73. The House of Seven Gables

  74. 1851—English

  75. The Blithedale Romance

  76. 1852—English

  77. The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni

  78. 1860—English

  79. Herodotus

  80. Historiē
    History
    Fifth Century B C—Greek


  81. Oliver Wendell Holmes

  82. The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
    originally published serially 1857-8 in the Atlantic Monthly—English

    Homer
  83. Iliad

  84. ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

  85. Odýsseia

  86. The Odyssey
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek


    Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
  87. Satirae

  88. originally published in two volumes, 35 B C and 30 B C—Latin

  89. Carmina

  90. Odes
    originally published in four volumes: first-third, 23 B C; fourth, 13 B C—Latin


  91. Epodon

  92. Epodes
    30 B C—Latin


  93. Victor Hugo

  94. Les Misérables
    1862—French

  95. Washington Irving

  96. The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
    originally published serially Jun. 1819-Jul. 1820; expanded 1848—English
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  97. Kalevala
    compiled by Elias Lönnrot; 1835; revised 1849—Finnish

    • John Keats

  98. Poems
    early Nineteenth Century—English

    Charles Lamb
  99. Essays of Elia

  100. 1823; originally published serially 1820-5 in the London Magazine—English

  101. Last Essays of Elia
    1833; originally published serially 1820-5 in the London Magazine—English

    • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • James Russell Lowell

    Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • Thomas Macaulay (Lord Macaulay)

  102. Essays
    Nineteenth Century—English

  103. Vyasa

  104. Mahabharata
    includes Bhagavad Gita; ca. Ninth Century B C-Fourth Century—Sanskrit

  105. Thomas Malory

  106. Le Morte d'Arthur
    1485; revised through sixth edition, 1634—English

  107. Marcus Aurelius

  108. Ta Eis Heauton
    Meditations
    written 161-80—Greek


    Christopher Marlowe
  109. Tamburlaine the Great

  110. 1590—English

  111. The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus

  112. 1592—English

  113. The Jew of Malta
    1592—English

    John Milton
    • Poems

  114. Seventeenth Century—English

  115. Paradise Lost
    1667; revised 1674—English

    • Molière

  116. Plays
    Seventeenth Century—French

  117. Michel de Montaigne

  118. Les Essais
    Essays
    originally published in three volumes: 1580, 1588, and 1595—French


    --
  119. Nibelungenlied

  120. ca. Twelfth-Thirteenth centuries—German

  121. Omar Khayyam
    The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
    ca. Eleventh-Twelfth centuries; compiled by Edward FitzGerald in five editions, 1859, 1868, 1872, 1879, and 1889—Persian

    • Plato

  122. Dialogues
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  123. Plutarch
    Bìoi Paràllēloi
    Parallel Lives; Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
    First Century—Greek


    • Edgar Allan Poe

    Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • Alexander Pope

  124. Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

  125. Valmiki

  126. Ramayana
    ca. Fifth-Second centuries B C—Sanskrit

  127. Saadi Shirazi

  128. Gullistan
    written 1258—Persian

    Walter Scott
  129. Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since

  130. originally anonymously published 1814—English

  131. Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer

  132. originally anonymously published 1815—English

  133. The Antiquary

  134. originally anonymously published 1816—English

  135. The Black Dwarf

  136. originally anonymously published 1816—English

  137. The Tale of Old Mortality

  138. originally anonymously published 1816—English

  139. Rob Roy

  140. originally anonymously published 1817—English

  141. The Heart of Midlothian

  142. originally anonymously published 1818—English

  143. The Bride of Lamermoor

  144. originally anonymously published 1819—English

  145. A Legend of Montrose

  146. originally anonymously published 1819—English

  147. Ivanhoe

  148. originally anonymously published 1819—English

  149. The Monastery

  150. originally anonymously published 1820—English

  151. The Abbot

  152. originally anonymously published 1820—English

  153. Kenilworth

  154. originally anonymously published 1821—English

  155. The Pirate

  156. originally anonymously published 1822—English

  157. The Fortunes of Nigel

  158. originally anonymously published 1822—English

  159. Peveril of the Peak

  160. originally anonymously published 1822—English

  161. Quentin Durward

  162. originally anonymously published 1823—English

  163. St. Ronan's Well

  164. originally anonymously published 1823—English

  165. Redgauntlet

  166. originally anonymously published 1824—English

  167. The Betrothed

  168. originally anonymously published 1825—English

  169. The Talisman

  170. originally anonymously published 1825—English

  171. Woodstock; or, The Cavalier

  172. originally anonymously published 1826—English

  173. St. Valentine's Day; or, The Fair Maid of Perth

  174. doriginally anonymously published 1828—English

  175. Anne of Geierstein; or, The Maiden of the Mist

  176. originally anonymously published 1829—English

  177. Count Robert of Paris

  178. originally anonymously published 1831—English

  179. Castle Dangerous
    originally anonymously published 1831—English

    • William Shakespeare

    Selected works
    late Sixteenth-early Seventeenth centuries—English

    • Percy Bysshe Shelley

    Poems
    early Nineteenth Century—English

    • Sophocles

    Plays
    Fifth Century B C—Greek

    • Edmund Spenser

  180. The Faerie Queene [excerpted]
    unspecified selections; complete work originally published in two volumes, 1590 and 1596—English

  181. Torquato Tasso
    La Gerusalemme Liberata
    1581—Italian

    • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

    Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

    William Makepeace Thackeray
    • Novels

  182. Nineteenth Century—English

  183. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero

  184. originally published serially Jan. 1847-Jul. 1848—English

  185. The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Q. Anne. Written by Himself

  186. 1852—English

  187. The Newcomes. Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family. Edited by Arthur Pendennis, Esq.

  188. originally published serially 1853-5—English

  189. The History of Pendennis: His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and Greatest Enemy

  190. originally published serially, 1848-50—English

  191. Theocritus

  192. Idylls
    Third Century B C—Greek

  193. Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)

  194. Aeneid
    First Century B C—Latin

  195. Izaak Walton
    The Compleat Angler
    1653; revised through sixth edition, 1676—English

    • Daniel Webster

    Speeches
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • William Wordsworth

  196. Poems
    late Eighteenth-early Nineteenth centuries—English