Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish, List of Books [1981]
47 entries: 40 monographical, 7 otherwise
Unrankedarranged alphabetically by author, except no. 3, which appears to have been mistakenly placed ahead of no. 4
This list is just a small part of List of Books, which, despite its title, consists of many short lists, defined by genre and other categorizations. However, the editors each chose 25 books to take with them on a "desert island holiday" (not so morbid as the common tendency to assume that the listmaker is stranded on a desert island). With a few choices overlapping, this list is the result.
- Aeschylus
Oresteia
The House of Atreus
458 B CGreek
- Edward Albee
Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?
1962English
- David Attenborough
Life on Earth
1975; book accompanying television series of the same nameEnglish
- Aristophanes
Thesmophoriazousai
411 B CGreek
- Jane Austen
Emma
originally anonymously published 1815English
- Hector Berlioz
Memoires de Hector Berlioz Comprenant ses Voyages en Italie, en Allemagne, en Russie et en Angleterre
published in part in Journal des Débats and Le Monde Illustré; in its entirety, 1865English
- Kenneth Burke
A Grammar of Motives
1945English
Letters and journals of Lord Byron
early Nineteenth CenturyEnglish
Collected Poems
1975Greek
- Dante
La Divina Commedia
The Divine Comedy
originally entitled La Commedia; written ca. 1308-21Italian
Poems
early Seventeenth CenturyEnglish
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
Brat'â Karamazovy
The Brothers Karamazov
originally published serially 1880 in Rússkij VéstnikRussian
- Gerard Durrell
My Family and Other Animals
1956English
- Lawrence Durrell
Reflections on a Marine Venus
1953English
- George Eliot
Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
originally published serially Dec. 1871-Dec. 1872English
- T S Eliot
Four Quartets
originally published in four volumes: Burnt Norton, in Collected Poems 1909-1935, 1936; East Coker, in the New English Weekly, 1940; The Dry Salvages, in the New English Weekly, 1941; Little Gidding, in the New English Weekly, 1942English
- Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary
originally published serially Oct. 1856-Dec. 1856 in La Revue de ParisFrench
- Ford Madox Ford
Parade's End
originally published in four volumes: Some Do Not..., 1924; No More Parades, 1925; A Man Could Stand Up, 1926; Last Post, 1928English
- James George Frazer
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 1994English
- 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, 1788English
- Joseph Heller
Catch-22
1961English
- David Hockney
David Hockney
1976English
- Homer
Odýsseia
The Odyssey
ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B CGreek
- Michael Innes
Operation Pax
The Paper Thunderbolt
1951English
- Randall Jarrell
Pictures From an Institution
1954English
- Ben Jonson
The Alchemist
1610English
- Franz Kafka
Der Prozess
The Trial
1925German
- John McCabe
Laurel and Hardy
1975; edited by Al Kilgore; includes filmography by Richard W BannEnglish
- Mary McCarthy
The Groves of Academe
1951English
- Michel de Montaigne
Les Essais
Essays
originally published in three volumes: 1580, 1588, and 1595French
- Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire
1962English
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen
Thus Spake Zarathustra
originally published in four volumes, 1883-5German
Collected Essays
1961English
- Blaise Pascal
Pensées
Thoughts
1669French
- 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, 1913-27French
- 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, 1564French
- Jean Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Mon Père
Renoir, My Father
1962French
- Steven Runciman
A History of the Crusades
1951English
Complete works
late Sixteenth-early Seventeenth centuriesEnglish
A Crown of Feather and Other Stories
1973Yiddish
- Stendhal
Le Chartreuse de Parme
The Charterhouse of Parma
1839French
- Wilfred Thesiger
The Marsh Arabs
1964English
- Thucydides
History of the Peloponnesian War
early Fifth Century B CGreek
- Leo Tolstoy
Voyna i Mir"
War and Peace
originally entitled 1805, published in part, 1865 and 1867; retitled and published in its entirety, 1869Russian
Poems
Fifteenth CenturyFrench
- Eric Walter White
Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works
1966English
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophische Untersuchungen
Philosophical Investigations
1953German