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Arthur Waldorn, Olga S Weber, and Arthur Zeiger, Good Reading: A Guide for Serious Readers, 23rd edition [1990]

106 entries: 81 monographical, 25 otherwise

Unranked—arranged alphabetically by author within chronological sections

The 23rd (and, apparently, final) edition of this long-running series features a list of 101 Significant Books, A Short List of Books to Read on Vacation, A Short List of Books to Read Before Entering College, and A Short List of Books to Read After Retirement. We are only interested here in the first list. Following the Greater Books guidelines, the final version of the Significant Books list is used. According to the list introductions found in both the 22nd and 23rd editions, the list of Significant Books was included in the first edition of Good Reading, in 1934, and has been revised "several times." The list is a good one, though it's perhaps the best (worst) example of the listmakers not bothering to list actual books in a list of books and, furthermore, having non-book entries that are incredibly vague (yes, Robert Frost did write poems, thanks). The only book included in the 22nd edition not found in the 23rd edition's list below is Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. Beauvoir, Borges, Garcia Márquez, Woolf, and Zola were added in the 23rd.

I have also come across a copy of the 21st edition, from which we learn of the items added to the 22nd, as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Spinoza's Ethics, Dickinson, Nietzsche's Will to Power, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Ellison's Invisible Man, Proust, and Yeats are not found in the earlier book. However, the items that appear in the 21st but not the 22nd are more numerous: Aristotle - Politics; Herodotus - History; Marcus Aurelius - Meditations; Cellini's autobiography; Franklin's autobiography; Pepys' diary; Butler - The Way of All Flesh; Maupassant - short stories; Wordsworth; Huxley - Brave New World; Lewis - Arrowsmith; Sandburg - Lincoln; Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath; and Veblen - The Theory of the Leisure Class. A couple authors's selections were changed from the 21st to the 22nd/ 23rd: Dickens' David Copperfield replaced Grand Expectations; while Lawrence's Women in Love replaced Sons and Lovers.

  1. Aeschylus
    Oresteia
    The House of Atreus
    458 B C—Greek


    • Aesop

    Fables
    ca. late Seventh-early Sixth centuries B C—Greek

    • Aristophanes

  2. Plays
    late Fifth Century B C—Greek

  3. Aristotle

  4. Ethika Nikomacheia
    Nicomachean Ethics
    Fourth Century B C—Greek


    --
  5. The Bible

  6. —Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  7. Confucius (Kǒng Zǐ) (Kǒng Fūzǐ) (K'ung Fu-tzu)
    Analects
    Lún Yǔ
    written and compiled by the author's pupils; ca. Fifth Century B C-Second Century—Chinese


    • Euripides

  8. Plays
    late Fifth Century B C—Greek

    Homer
  9. Iliad

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

  11. Odýsseia

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


  13. Lǎozǐ (Lao-tzu) (Laocius)

  14. Dàodéjǐng
    Tao te Ching
    ca. Sixth Century B C—Chinese


  15. Titus Lucretius Carus

  16. De Rerum Natura
    On the Nature of Things
    First Century B C—Latin


    Plato
  17. Politeia

  18. The Republic
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek


  19. Symposium

  20. early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  21. Plutarch

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


    Sophocles
  23. Antigone

  24. ca. 441 B C—Greek

  25. Oidipous epi Kolōnō

  26. Oedipus at Colonus
    401 B C—Greek


  27. Oidipous Tyrannos

  28. Oedipus Rex; Oedipus the King
    ca. 429 B C—Greek


  29. Thucydides

  30. History of the Peloponnesian War
    early Fifth Century B C—Greek

  31. Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)

  32. Aeneid
    First Century B C—Latin

    --
  33. Kitab alf Laylah Wa-Laylah

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


  35. Francis Bacon

  36. 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

  37. Giovanni Boccaccio

  38. Il Decameron, Cognominato Prencipe Galeotto
    ca. 1351-53—Italian

  39. Miguel de Cervantes

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


  41. Geoffrey Chaucer

  42. Canterbury Tales
    1478—English

  43. Dante

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


  45. Niccolò Machiavelli

  46. Il Principe
    The Prince
    1532—Italian


  47. Thomas Malory

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

    --
  49. Quran

  50. Koran
    Seventh Century—Arabic


  51. Michel de Montaigne

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


  53. Thomas More

  54. Libellus Uere Aureus, nec Minus Salutaris Quam Festivus, de Optimo rei Publicae Statu Deque Nova Insula Utopia
    Utopia
    1516—Latin


  55. Omar Khayyam

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

  57. François Rabelais
    La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel
    originally published in five volumes: Les Horribles et Épouvantables Faits et Prouesses du Très Renommé Pantagruel Roi des Dipsodes, Fils du Grand Géant Gargantua, 1532; La Vie Très Horrifique du Grand Gargantua, Père de Pantagruel, 1534; Le Tiers Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1546; Le Quart Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1552; Le Cinquiesme et Dernier Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1564—French

    • William Shakespeare

  58. Plays
    late Sixteenth-early Seventeenth centuries—English

  59. James Boswell

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

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

    • Robert Burns

  62. Poems
    late Eighteenth Century—English

  63. Daniel Defoe

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

  65. René Descartes
    Discours de la Méthode Pour Bien Conduire sa Raison, et Chercher la Vérité dans les Sciences
    Discourse on the Method
    1637—French


    • John Donne

  66. Poems
    early Seventeenth Century—English

  67. Henry Fielding

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

  69. Edward Gibbon
    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

    • Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison

  70. The Federalist Papers
    originally published 1787-1788 in the Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser—English

  71. Immanuel Kant

  72. Kritik der Reinen Vernunft
    Critique of Pure Reason
    1781; revised 1787—German


  73. John Locke

  74. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
    1689—English

  75. Thomas Robert Malthus

  76. An Essay on the Principle of Population
    originally anonymously published 1798; revised and published under the author's name, 1803—English

  77. John Milton
    Paradise Lost
    1667; revised 1674—English

    • Molière

  78. "Comedies"
    Seventeenth Century—French

  79. Thomas Paine

  80. The Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
    originally published in two volumes, 1791 and 1792—English

  81. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  82. Du Contrat Social ou Principes du Droit Politique
    The Social Contract
    1762—French


  83. Adam Smith

  84. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
    1776; revised through third edition, 1784—English

  85. Baruch Spinoza

  86. Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata
    Ethics
    1677—Latin


  87. Laurence Sterne

  88. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    originally published in nine volumes, 1759-67—English

  89. Jonathan Swift

  90. Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships
    Gulliver's Travels
    1726; revised 1735—English


  91. Voltaire

  92. Candide, ou L'Optimisme
    1759—French

  93. Jane Austen

  94. Pride and Prejudice
    originally anonymously published 1813—English

  95. Honoré de Balzac
    Eugénie Grandet
    1833—French

    • Robert Browning

    Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • Lord Byron

    Poems
    early Nineteenth Century—English

    • Anton Chekhov

  96. Plays
    late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—Russian

  97. Charles Darwin

  98. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
    1859—English

  99. Charles Dickens
    The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)
    originally published serially May 1849-Nov. 1850—English

    • Emily Dickinson

  100. Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

  101. Fyodor Dostoevsky

  102. Brat'â Karamazovy
    The Brothers Karamazov
    originally published serially 1880 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian


  103. George Eliot
    Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
    originally published serially Dec. 1871-Dec. 1872—English

    • Ralph Waldo Emerson

  104. Essays
    Nineteenth Century—English

  105. Gustave Flaubert

  106. Madame Bovary
    originally published serially Oct. 1856-Dec. 1856 in La Revue de Paris—French

  107. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  108. 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

  109. Thomas Hardy

  110. Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented
    published in part serially Jul.-Dec. 1891 in the Graphic—English

  111. Nathaniel Hawthorne

  112. The Scarlet Letter
    1850—English

  113. Victor Hugo
    Les Misérables
    1862—French

    • Henrik Ibsen

    Plays
    Fadiman recommends several overlapping collections; late Nineteenth Century—Norwegian

    • John Keats

  114. Poems
    early Nineteenth Century—English

  115. Karl Marx

  116. Das Kapital, Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie
    originally published in three volumes 1867, 1885, and 1894—German

  117. Herman Melville

  118. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
    1851—English

  119. Friedrich Nietzsche
    Der Wille zur Mach
    The Will to Power
    1901; revised 1906—German


    • Edgar Allan Poe

    Stories
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • Percy Bysshe Shelley

  120. Poems
    early Nineteenth Century—English

  121. Stendhal

  122. Le Rouge et le Noir, Chronique du XIXe Siècle
    The Red and the Black
    1830—French


  123. William Makepeace Thackeray

  124. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero
    originally published serially Jan. 1847-Jul. 1848—English

  125. Henry David Thoreau

  126. Walden; or, Life in the Woods
    1854—English

  127. Leo Tolstoy

  128. Voyna i Mir"
    War and Peace
    originally entitled 1805, published in part, 1865 and 1867; retitled and published in its entirety, 1869—Russian


  129. Mark Twain

  130. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    1884—English

  131. Walt Whitman
    Leaves of Grass
    1855; expanded and revised through ninth edition, 1892—English

    • William Wordsworth

  132. Poems
    late Eighteenth-early Nineteenth centuries—English

  133. Émile Zola

  134. Germinal
    originally published serially Apr. 1884-Jan. 1885 in Gil Blas—French

  135. Simone Beauvoir
    Le Deuxième Sexe
    The Second Sex
    published in part serially in Les Temps Modernes; in its entirety in two volumes, 1949—French


    • Jorge Luis Borges

  136. Labyrinths
    English translations of stories mostly originally published in Ficciones and El Aleph—Spanish

  137. Albert Einstein
    The Meaning of Relativity: Four Lectures Delivered at Princeton University
    1921; expanded, 1945—English

    T S Eliot
    • Poems

    Twentieth Century—English

    • Plays

  138. Twentieth Century—English

  139. Ralph Ellison

  140. Invisible Man
    1952—English

  141. William Faulkner

  142. The Sound and the Fury
    1929—English

  143. James George Frazer

  144. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
    originally entitled The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, published in two volumes, 1890; expanded and retitled 1900, in three volumes; expanded 1906-15, in 12 volumes; supplemental volume added for 1937 edition; distinct abridged versions, 1922, 1959, and 1994; Good Reading specifies the 1959 abridged edition—English

  145. Sigmund Freud
    Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse
    Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis
    1917—German


    • Robert Frost

  146. Poems
    Twentieth Century—English

  147. Gabriel García Márquez

  148. Cien Anõs de Soledad
    One Hundred Years of Solitude
    1967—Spanish


  149. Ernest Hemingway

  150. The Sun Also Rises
    1926—English

  151. Henry James

  152. The Ambassadors
    originally published serially 1903 in the North American Review—English

  153. James Joyce

  154. Ulysses
    published in part serially Mar. 1918-Dec. 1920 in the Little Review; in its entirety, 1922—English

  155. D H Lawrence

  156. Women in Love
    1920—English

  157. Thomas Mann
    Der Zauberberg
    The Magic Mountain
    1924—German


    • Eugene O'Neill

  158. Plays
    Twentieth Century—English

  159. Marcel Proust
    À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
    In Search of Lost Time; In Remembrance of Things Past
    originally published in seven volumes, two of which originally published as two books each, 1913-27—French


    • George Bernard Shaw

  160. Plays
    late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—English>

  161. Virginia Woolf
    To the Lighthouse
    1927 —English

    • William Butler Yeats

  162. Poems
    late Nineteenth-early Twentieth centuries—English