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John Lubbock, The Choice of Books [1896]

121 entries: 96 monographical, 25 otherwise

Unranked, arranged topically

According to W. B. Carnochan's 'Where Did Great Books Come From Anyway', Lubbock offered an earlier version of his list in a lecture given at the Working Men's College in London, apparently in early January 1886; this list, edited at least for organizational purposes, was published in the Pall Mall Gazette, January 11th. An edited version of Lubbock's lecture, with list included, was published in the Contemporary Review, February 1886, entitled 'On the Pleasure of Reading'. Lubbock crafted a revised version of this list for his 1896 book, The Choice of Books. That version is the basis for our list here. The Contemporary Review version included unspecified listings for Heinrich Heine and Lucretius; two novels by Jane Austen, Emma and Pride and Prejudice; and two works by Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer and The Curse of Kehema. While these were excluded from the '96 list, the Kalidasa and Schiller entries were added.

  1. The Bible

  2. —Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  3. Marcus Aurelius

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


    Epictetus
  5. Diatribai

  6. Discourses
    compiled by Arrian; Second Century—Greek


  7. Enchiridion of Epictetus

  8. compiled by Arrian; Second Century—Greek

  9. Aristotle

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


  11. Confucius (Kǒng Zǐ) (Kǒng Fūzǐ) (K'ung Fu-tzu)

  12. Analects
    Lún Yǔ
    written and compiled by the author's pupils; ca. Fifth Century B C-Second Century—Chinese


  13. Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire
    Le Bouddha et Sa Religion
    1860—French

    • Apostolic Fathers

  14. Selected works
    series of early Christian writings from the late First-early Second centuries; unspecified selection—Greek

  15. Thomas á Kempis

  16. De Imitatione Christi
    The Imitation of Christ
    written ca. 1418-27—Latin


  17. Augustine of Hippo
    Confessionum Libri Tredecim
    The Confessions of St. Augustine
    written 397-8—Latin


    • Quran (Koran) [excerpted]

  18. Lubbock does not specify his selections; Seventh Century—Arabic

  19. Baruch Spinoza

  20. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
    originally anonymously published 1670—Latin

  21. Auguste Comte

  22. Catéchisme Positiviste
    1852—French

  23. Blaise Pascal

  24. Pensées
    Thoughts
    1669—French


  25. Joseph Butler

  26. Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature
    1736—English

  27. Jeremy Taylor

  28. Holy Living and Holy Dying
    originally published in two volumes: The Rules and Exercises of Holy Living, 1650; and The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying, 1651—English

  29. John Bunyan

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

  31. John Keble
    The Christian Year
    1827—English

    Plato
    • Dialogues

  32. early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  33. Apologia Socratis

  34. The Apology
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek


  35. Crito

  36. early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  37. Phaedo

  38. early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  39. Xenophon

  40. Memorabilia
    Apomnemoneumata
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek


  41. Aristotle

  42. Politik
    Politics
    Fourth Century B C#151;Greek


  43. Demosthenes

  44. On the Crown
    330 B C#151;Greek

    Marcus Tullius Cicero
  45. De Officiis

  46. written 44 B C—Latin

  47. Cato Major de Senectute

  48. written 44 B C—Latin

  49. Laelius de Amicitia

  50. written 44 B C—Latin

  51. Plutarch

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


  53. George Berkeley (Bishop Berkeley)

  54. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
    1710; revised 1734—English

  55. René Descartes

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


  57. John Locke

  58. Of the Conduct of the Understanding
    originally published as part of the Posthumous Works of John Locke, 1706—English

    Homer
  59. Iliad

  60. ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C#151;Greek

  61. Odýsseia
    The Odyssey
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C#151;Greek


    • Hesiod

    Poems
    ca. Eighth-Seventh centuries B C—Greek

    • Virgil

  62. Selected works
    First Century B C—Latin

  63. Vyasa

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

  65. Valmiki

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

  67. Ferdowsi

  68. Shahnameh
    The Book of Kings
    written ca. 977-1010—Persian


    --
  69. Nibelungenlied

  70. ca. Twelfth-Thirteenth centuries—German

  71. Thomas Malory

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

    --
  73. Shījīng

  74. Shih-Ching; The Classic of Poetry; The Book of Poetry; The Book of Songs; The Book of Odes
    one of the Five Classics of Confucianism; Eleventh-Seventh centuries B C—Chinese


  75. Kalidasa

  76. Abhijnanasakuntalam
    The Recognition of Sakuntala
    ca. Fifth Century—Sanskrit


    Aeschylus
  77. Promētheus Desmōtēs

  78. Prometheus Bound
    disputed authorship; Fifth Century B C—Greek


  79. Oresteia

  80. The House of Atreus
    458 B C—Greek


    Sophocles
  81. Antigone

  82. ca. 441 B C—Greek

  83. Oidipous epi Kolōnō

  84. Oedipus at Colonus
    401 B C—Greek


  85. Oidipous Tyrannos

  86. Oedipus Rex; Oedipus the King
    ca. 429 B C#151;Greek


  87. Euripides

  88. Mēdeia
    Medea
    431 B C#151;Greek


    Aristophanes
  89. Hippeîs

  90. The Knights
    424 B C—Greek


  91. Nephelai
    The Clouds
    423 B C; revised 417 B C; only revised version remains—Greek


    • Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)

  92. Poems
    First Century B C—Latin

  93. Geoffrey Chaucer
    Canterbury Tales
    1478—English

    • William Shakespeare

  94. Selected works
    late Sixteenth-early Seventeenth centuries—English

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

    • 'Lycidas'

    originally published in Justa Edouardo King Naufrago, 1638; revised for inclusion in Poems of Mr. John Milton, Both English and Latin, 1645—English

    • A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: On Michelmas Night, Before the Right Honorable, John Earl of Bridgewater, Viscount Brackly, Lord President of Wales, and One of His Maiesties Most Honorable Privie Councill

    'Comus'
    originally anonymously published 1637; included in Poems of Mr. John Milton, Both English and Latin, 1645—English


    • "Minor poems"

  96. Lubbock uses the term, "Shorter poems"; Seventeenth Century—English

  97. Dante

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


  99. Edmund Spenser
    The Faerie Queene
    originally published in two volumes, 1590 and 1596—English

    • John Dryden

    Poems
    Seventeenth Century—English

    • Walter Scott

    Poems
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • William Wordsworth

  100. Poems of Wordsworth
    1879; edited by Matthew Arnold—English

    Alexander Pope
  101. Essay on Criticism

  102. 1711—English

  103. Essay on Man

  104. 1734—English

  105. The Rape of the Lock
    originally anonymously published 1712 in Linot's Miscellany; expanded 1714 and 1717—English

    • Robert Burns

  106. Poems
    late Eighteenth Century—English

  107. Lord Byron (George Gordon, Lord Byron)
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
    1812-8—English

    • Thomas Gray

  108. Poems
    Eighteenth Century—English

  109. Herodotus

  110. Historiē
    History
    Fifth Century B C#151;Greek


  111. Xenophon

  112. Anabasis
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  113. Thucydides

  114. History of the Peloponnesian War
    early Fifth Century B C#151;Greek

  115. Cornelius Tacitus

  116. De Origine et Situ Germanorum
    Germania
    written ca. 98—Latin


  117. Livy (Titus Livius)

  118. Ab Urbe Condita Libri
    History of Rome
    First Century B C—Latin


  119. Edward Gibbon

  120. 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

  121. David Hume

  122. The History of England
    originally published in six volumes: fifth, 1754; sixth, 1756; third-fourth, 1759; first-second, 1761—English

  123. George Grote

  124. History of Greece; From the Earliest Period to the Close of the Generation Contemporary With Alexander the Great
    originally published in twelve volumes, 1846-56—English

  125. Thomas Carlyle

  126. The French Revolution
    1837; revised 1857—English

  127. John Richard Green

  128. A Short History of the English People
    1874—English

  129. George Henry Lewes

  130. The Biographical History of Philosophy
    1848; later revised—English

    --
  131. Kitab alf Laylah Wa-Laylah

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


  133. Jonathan Swift

  134. 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


  135. Daniel Defoe

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

  137. Oliver Goldsmith

  138. The Vicar of Wakefield
    1766—English

  139. Miguel de Cervantes

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


  141. James Boswell
    The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
    1791—English

    • Molière

  142. Plays
    Seventeenth Century—French

  143. Friedrich Schiller

  144. Wilhelm Tell
    1804—German

    Richard Brinsley Sheridan
  145. The Critic: or, a Tragedy Rehearsed

  146. 1779—English

  147. School for Scandal

  148. 1777—English

  149. The Rivals

  150. 1775—English

  151. Thomas Carlyle

  152. Past and Present
    1843—English

  153. Francis Bacon
    Novum Organum Scientiarium
    1620—English

    • Adam Smith

  154. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [excerpted]
    unspecified selection; complete work, 1776; revised through third edition, 1784—English

  155. John Stuart Mill
    Principles of Political Economy
    1848; revised through seventh edition, 1871—English

    • James Cook

    Journals
    Eighteenth Century—English

    • Alexander von Humboldt

  156. "Travels"
    unspecified selection; early Nineteenth Century—French, German

  157. Gilbert White

  158. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne
    1789—English

    Charles Darwin
  159. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

  160. 1859—English

  161. The Voyage of the Beagle

  162. originally published as Journal and Remarks, 1832-1835, volume three of Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Eagle, 1838; also published that year as Journal of Researches Into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H M S Beagle; revised 1845—English

  163. John Stuart Mill

  164. A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
    1843—English

  165. Francis Bacon

  166. 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

  167. Michel de Montaigne
    Les Essais
    Essays
    originally published in three volumes: 1580, 1588, and 1595—French


    • David Hume

    Essays
    Eighteenth Century—English

    • Thomas Macaulay (Lord Macaulay)

    Essays
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • Joseh Addison

    Essays
    early Eighteenth Century—English

    • Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Essays
    Nineteenth Century—English

    • Edmund Burke

  168. Selected works
    late Eighteenth Century—English

  169. Samuel Smiles

  170. Self-Help; With Illustrations of Character and Conduct
    1859—English

    Voltaire
  171. Zadig

  172. 1747—French

  173. Micromégas

  174. 1752—French

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  175. Faust

  176. 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

  177. Aus Mienem Leben: Dichtung und Warheit

  178. From My Life: Poetry and Truth
    originally published in four volumes: first-third, 1811-3; fourth, 1833—German


    William Makepeace Thackeray
  179. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero

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

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

  182. originally published serially 1848-50—English

    Charles Dickens
  183. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club

  184. The Pickwick Papers
    originally published serially Apr. 1836-Nov. 1837 under the pseudonym, Boz—English


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

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

  187. Edward Bulwer-Lytton

  188. The Last Days of Pompeii
    1834—English

  189. George Eliot

  190. Adam Bede
    1859—English

  191. Charles Kingsley
    Westward Ho!
    1855—English

    • Walter Scott

  192. Novels
    Nineteenth Century—English