The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-14
IN A VILLAGE LIBRARY
CLEMENT X. sHORTER's SELECTION
of 100 BEST VOLUMES.
Not Necessarily the Hundred Best
Books in the Language-A List
Open to Criticism.

Clement X. shorter, VINO IS, perhaps, Del
ter known in London literary circles than
on this side Of the Atlantic, was asked by
the editor of the London Bookman to make
a selection of one hundred books best suited
to the needs of a village library. In the Oc-
tober issue of the Bookman Mr.. Shorter's
selections appear, prefaced by some tart
comments on the list of one hundred books
chosen by Sir John Lubbock as most inter
esting and most desirable of study. Mr..
Shorter writes:
Asked to name what / think the best one
hundred books for village library, am at
a somewhat different standpoint from one
who would name the bes. one hundred
books that literature has given us. This lat
ter task would be but to put on paper the
name Of volume after volume that no one
now reads, that no one to-day would de-
rive any profit from reading. Sir John Lub-
book once named the one hundred books
that he thought most interesting and most
desirable of study, and he was addressing a
workingman's club. If Sir John Lubbock
has read all of these himself, he has read
some sad trash. One of them is the 'Nibe-
lungen Lied" which, it may be presumed,
he did not expect the workingmen he adj
dressed to study in old German or modern
only in an absurd translation If he had
quietly mentioned Carlyles essays as a
source from which an English reader can
obtain some knowledge of these delightful
legends he would have shown less preten-
tiouSness.
BOOKS TO BE AVOIDED.
Is it anything but an affectation, further,
which filings together Smiths wealth of
Nations" Buffers Analogy" Locke on
the Understanding, "Hesoid Descartes,
Spinoza," '"Fractatus Theologico Polticus''
and 1.-The Ramayana" and 1.-THE Mahabha-
rata" as books which a workingman should
study? Every one of these books should, of
course, be rigdly avoided by every intelli-
gent man outside of purely scholastic cir
Giles. Their perusal would make him a terror
to his neighbors. And recommendation
of Hume's history is to be blind to the his
torical studies of half a century.
1t is not in the least difficult to make a
list of a hundred books perfectly under
standed of the people which not only work
and reread every ten years or SO. In such
a list l object to put Shakespeare in bulk,
now that the Messrs. Dent and Mr.. Col
lance has so adequately provided us with
Shakspeares plays in separate volumes.
Each one of Shakspeares greater plays
has furnished forth library of criticism
and is entitled to rank as a separate book.
Besides this, many a beginner is likely to
be repulSed by a recommendation so
formidable as the whole of Shakspeare's
plays, perhaps in one more or less Imprinted
volume. If, say, half a dozen plays have
been read with pleasure the reader will be
sure to turn to the others.
The same criticism applies to Scott, to
Dickens, or whoever my be the writer. one
or two typical works open the door to the
study of the authur who most attracts the
particular Individual; and temperament and
taste are so at variance that one man is
repulsed by Dickens, but finds in Omar
Khayyam a profound affinity; another de-
in Dickens is hlWil61r60
praise which Gitz Gerald'S paraphraSe OF
Omar has secured in our day.
JAMES PAYN'S CRITICISM.
The hundred best books for village IL
brary are not necessarily the hundred best
books in the language. James Payn said
that the reading of Sir John Lubbock's
hundred books would make a man hopeless
prig. 1t would do more-it would make him
a hopeless dullard. 1 cannot see what Sir
John was driving at He could, not have
intended to suggest the hundred best books
in the worlds literature, although he named
numbers of classical books, much talked
about and never read and, indeed, impos-
sible of modern consumption! He would
surely not have included works by Bulwer
Lytton and Charles Kingsley in such list
and have ignored Jane Austen. Lytton and
Kingsley may fairly be included in any sug
gested hundred books for village library
but their works are not among the worlds
great classics.
Here. then. is my list of a hundred books
It contains many that l do not pretend to
call classics, but it contains nothing tnat
will in the least bore any intelligent man
or woman. My list does not include any
books merely of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS re-
search or ordinary travel, for example.
Literature 1 conceive to mean books pre-
senting life in an artistic form No man
of science has ever been an artist, although
some, as, for example, Darwin and Huxley.
u Ino hoI friends nave
been such. One or two travellers have been
artists, Borrow, for example. The Bible, OF
course is taken for granted:
/. Homer's "Iliad" Pope's translation.
q THE Odyssey" Butcher and Lang's
translation. , ,s -,
i. '%rhe, Purgatory of Dante" Trans
..The Paradise of Dante" Translated
;"The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam."
Translated by Edward Fitzgerald.
I. "Cellinis Autobiography" Symonds
: s. ."The Pilgrims Progress"
9. Robinson Crusoe
TO- "Gulliver's Travels" :,
Il. sterne's "sentimentall II,rceyy;d
Z. Goldsmth'g ''yicar OF Wa aIzen;Ee
a. Letters of Cowper in the Golden
Treasury series. :.
the Golden Treasury series g.
16 Paigrave's Golden Treasury of Songs
II. Tkackeray's Vanity Fair"
- "Thackeray's ''Esmond.
49, Dickens's "Pickwick
90 Dickens's David Copperheld.
q. Fielding's Tom Jones.
90 BosweITs Life of Johnson.
%. Gibbons decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire.
"a Gibbons Autobiography.
Is. Prologue to Chaucers Canterbury ts
in the Aldine Poets.
26 Shakspeares Hamlet.
81. Shakspeares king Lear.
%. Shakspeare's Macbeth. 4
%. Shakspeares "As You Like 1t.
20 Shakspeares much Ado About Moth
81. Shakspeares Merchant of Venice"
&c. Pepys Diary
81. Mifton's Paradise Lost"
"a DoWden's Shakespeare Primer.
az Stopford Brooke's Life of Milton"
&c. Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy
Tales
az Arnold's selections from Johnson's
Lives of the Poets.
IS. Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre"
4O Mrs Gaskelrs Life of Charlotte
a. Mrs Gaskelps Crawford
a-+ md