GOLDEN TREASURY of FAMOUS BOOKS

A GUIDE TO GOOD READING FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, AND FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF THOSE WHO LOVE BOOKS

By MARJORY WILLISON

TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED, AT ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE 1929

Copyright, Canada, 1929 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED

PRINTED IN CANADA

T. H. BEST PRINTING CO., LIMITED TORONTO, ONT.

FOREWORD

One day, a little more than a hundred years ago, a boy was walking along a crowded street in London. It is likely that Dick Whittington had walked on the very same street about the time when he heard Bow Bells ring. But this boy was not thinking about the bells of London. He had been reading a story in a book, and he was thinking of the people in the story, especially of a man called Leander who swam across the straits named the Hellespont.

The story of Hero and Leander is told in a poem. These two people were in love with one another. But Hero, who was very beautiful, was a priestess of Aphrodite, and she was not supposed to fall in love or marry. Leander lived at Abydos, which is on one side of the straits of the Hellespont. Hero lived in a high tower at Sestos, which is on the other side of the straits. The shores are rocky and dangerous, beautiful to look at, but hazardous for sailors and ships. Tides and winds make it difficult to sail through the straits, and very difficult at times to swim across from shore to shore. Leander used to swim from Abydos to Sestos after nightfall to see Hero, who had become his wife; and Hero, on her high tower, held a lighted lamp that shone like a star to guide Leander so that he would not be dashed on the rocks.

The name of the boy who had been reading the story was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was a country boy, the son of a clergyman, and he was at a boarding school in London. The school was for boys whose parents had not much money or who had no parents living.

On a school holiday, after breakfast, at which there was not a great deal to eat, the boys who were boarders were sent out into London and were not expected to come back until nightfall. Sometimes, they had nothing to eat all day long until supper-time. Coleridge was one of the boys who had to spend his holidays in this fashion.

On one holiday, Coleridge, as he walked along the crowded street, began to imagine how it would feel if he were swimming the Hellespont with Leander. You know how often we think when we are reading an interesting book that we are living with the people in the story. Being greatly absorbed in his thoughts, Coleridge began to move his arms as if he were swimming. If he had been in a field by himself, or on an empty street, no one would have minded. But Coleridge was on a crowded street, and by and by one of his arms struck a man who was passing, and his hand caught in the man's pocket. The man thought that Coleridge, who was only a boy, was trying to steal from him. However, he asked Coleridge a good many questions, and discovered that the boy had been reading in a book the story of Hero and Leander, and had been imagining that he was swimming across the Hellespont.

When the man found that Coleridge loved reading, but could not get the books he wanted easily, he took the boy to a library, which was not a free library but one where people had to pay a fee, and the man arranged for Coleridge to be allowed to read there.

Many stories are told of the different ways in which boys and girls have found famous books which they have read with enjoyment, and never forgotten. Another boy called Samuel—Samuel Johnson—had been looking for apples that he knew were hidden somewhere. He climbed upon a step-ladder to look behind the rows of books in his father's book shop, and while he was looking for the apples he found Plutarch's Lives. Very likely the boy Samuel Johnson began reading the book, and forgot about the apples. Another boy once was told to watch a fire, which was burning rubbish in a field, so that it would not spread and burn the fences. He watched the fire for a while, but he had a book in his pocket and presently he forgot to watch, and so the fence was burned. Likely he was punished at the time, but years after his friends used to tell the story, for the boy had become an eminent man. How many of us have climbed into trees to read books in a leafy solitude! Louisa May Alcott was one of the girls, later known for her charming stories, who had a special tree into which she used to climb, so that no one should interrupt her while she was reading.

This book which you are reading now is meant to help you to find books that you will enjoy. You may begin at the first chapter; perhaps this is the best way. Or you may look at the list of chapters, and try the one which seems to you most interesting. But when you have read that chapter, come back to the beginning and start over again.

Fairy tales and stories of marvels you will find described in Part III, also stories of heroes, and such stories as Alice in Wonderland, Kipling's stories, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur, a great book telling of knights and their adventures.

The books in Part I are wonderfully interesting. In this Part you will find examples of some of the ways in which we may enjoy books of famous authors, for instance, the work of novelists like Dickens and Scott, and the plays of a great dramatist like Shakespeare. First, we may read some of their stories or plays; then we may learn of the lives of these authors, especially about that part of their lives when they were young which is always interesting; and finally, we can read of the world as it was when these writers lived in it and of the effect their work has had on this world of ours.

Part II is about romance and adventure. In Part IV you will find ballads and stories in rhyme or verse. Part V tells of some of the greatest writers and their work. Part VI is meant to help boys and girls to be good citizens, and to undertake all kinds of responsibilities when they are men and women. In one of the chapters of Part VI there is a list of books, many of which are biographies of noted men and women, but there are also books about such subjects as flying, inventions, science, hobbies, birds, flowers, gardens and mountain climbing. The last chapter in Part VI tells of some books of travel and discovery.

The books in Part VII are specially enjoyable, because they are intimate books; and you will find great poetry spoken of in Part VIII.

We do not all like the same books; and this is likely the best way, for some books which may seem dull to us, other people find interesting. What is important is for each of us to discover the books we enjoy most.

So if we do not happen to like Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, there is no great harm done, although Dean Swift was a notable writer. And if some of you do not care for Robert Louis Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verse now, the chances are that by the time you are over sixty, you will think it a charming book, and you may even repeat the verses aloud to your grand-children.

We never know when we may discover, hidden in the midst of dullness perhaps, some gem of a story or poem; and this is one of the reasons why most of us love reading, and will take a good deal of trouble to find the books we enjoy.

Before you read this book, perhaps you had better ask yourselves the question, what kind of books each one of you cares for most? And then, after that, ask yourselves another question, what kinds of books do you think you would like to enjoy? The last question is worth considering with not a little care; for when we think about it, we really set out on a journey into the world of books.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following authors, literary agents and publishers, for permission to quote in this volume certain excerpts as follows:

To Mr. Walter de la Mare and Messrs. James B. Pinker & Sons, for an extract from "The Listeners"; to Mrs. James Elroy Flecker and Messrs. A. P. Watt & Son, for an extract from the late Mr. James Elroy Flecker's Hassan, and to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for a quotation from The Iliad of Homer (edited by Lang, Leaf and Myers) and for a short passage from the late Mr. Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts.

CONTENTS

PART I

DICKENS, SCOTT, SHAKESPEARE, THE BIBLE

CHAPTER

I SOME OF DICKENS' NOVELS AND CHARACTERS

II CHARLES DICKENS: BOY AND MAN

III WHAT DICKENS DID FOR HUMANITY

IV THE WAVERLEY NOVELS

V SCOTT'S OWN STORY

VI THE TEMPEST AND OTHER OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

VII SHAKESPEARE: THE GREAT WORLD ITSELF

VIII STORIES FROM THE BIBLE

IX LIVING WATERS

PART II

ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE

X DUMAS. HUGO. STEVENSON

XI ROBINSON CRUSOE. LORNA DOONE. HEREWARD. WESTWARD HO! ROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS. TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. MIDSHIPMAN EASY. PETER SIMPLE. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST. THE GOLDEN DOG

XII LAVENGRO. THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. TOM SAWYER. HUCKLEBERRY FINN. KIM. SARD HARKER. THE LIVING FOREST

PART III

SONGS OF HEROES, MYTHS, FAIRY TALES AND MARVELS

XIII THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY. GREEK HEROES. TANGLEWOOD TALES. THE WONDER BOOK

XIV ÆSOP'S FABLES. GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES. THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR

XV ALICE IN WONDERLAND. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. THE GOLDEN AGE. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. FOUR BOOKS BY A. A. MILNE. RIP VAN WINKLE

XVI THE JUNGLE BOOKS. JUST SO STORIES. PUCK OF POOK'S HILL. REWARDS AND FAIRIES. THE BLUE BIRD. PETER PAN. KILMENY

PART IV

BALLADS, LAYS, AND STORIES IN VERSE

XVII PERCY'S RELIQUES. CHEVY CHASE AND THE BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE. SIR PATRICK SPENS. THE NORTHERN MUSE

XVIII THE LADY OF THE LAKE. MARMION. JOHN GILPIN. EDINBURGH AFTER FLODDEN. HORATIUS. THE ARMADA

XIX HIAWATHA. FRENCH CHANSONS IN QUEBEC. A CHRISTMAS SONG

PART V

SOME GREAT IMAGINATIVE WRITERS

XX DANTE. CERVANTES. SPENSER

XXI JOHN BUNYAN AND THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

XXII THACKERAY. MEREDITH. HARDY

XXIII JANE AUSTEN. GEORGE ELIOT. THE BRONTES

PART VI

HISTORY, POLITICS, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVEL

XXIV WHAT IS HISTORY?

XXV THE MEANING OF POLITICS

XXVI HISTORIES

XXVII BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON

XXVIII READING FOR WHAT YOU WANT TO BE

XXIX TRAVEL AND DISCOVERY

PART VII

ESSAYS, CRITICISM, LETTERS, DIARIES

XXX CHARLES LAMB AND HAZLITT: ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS

XXXI LETTERS AND LETTER WRITERS. PEPYS AND OTHER DIARISTS

PART VIII

POETRY

XXXII POETRY AND BEAUTY

XXXIII POETRY AND TIME

XXXIV READING FOR YOUR OWN COUNTRY. ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ITS BRANCHES

AFTERWORD

INDEX