Great Books of the Western World

There is perhaps no book series as well known or esteemed as Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World.  Covering a history of thought from ancient Greece to the 20th century, the 60 volume series is immense.  On Amazon, the 60 volume set costs nearly $700.  Used.  But as you may have guessed, most of what appears is not under copyright and can, in fact, be downloaded for free.  So, I've done some searching and offer you the 'nearly complete' great books of the western world.

I'm only including free ebooks and for a couple I was only able to find pdfs.

Volume 1

The Great Conversation (pdf)


Note: Volume 2 & 3 are the Syntopicon, an index and guide on the ideas contained within the rest of the series.  These are not included for download.  Also, the volume numbering in the following post is based on the first edition, not the current second edition.

Volume 4

Homer-
(Note: When choosing translations, I've favored verse over prose)

The Iliad
The Odyssey


Volume 5

Aeschylus-
(first four download as one book)
The Suppliant Maidens
The Persians
Seven Against Thebes
Prometheus Bound
The Oresteia:
     Agamemnon
    Choephoroe
    The Euminides

Sophocles-
(All download as one book)
The Oedipus Cycle (Oedipus the King/ Oedipus at Colonus/ Antigone)
Ajax (in link titled 'Aias')
Electra
The Trachiniae (in link titled 'The Trachinian Maidens')
Philoctetes

Euripedes-

Rhesus
Medea
Hippolytus
Alcestis
Heracleidae
The Suppliants
Trojan Women
Ion
Helen
Andromanche
Electra
Bacchantes
Hecuba
Heracles Mad
Phoenician Women
Orestes
Iphigeneia in Tauris
Iphigeneia at Aulis
Cyclops

Aristophanes-
(What follows is the order the plays are set forth in the Great Books)
The Acharnians
The Knights
The Clouds
The Wasps
Peace
The Birds
The Frogs
Lysistrata
Thesmophoriazusae
Ecclesiazousae
Plutus

Downloadable in two volumes (Volume 1 and Volume 2)


Volume 6

Herodotus-

The History

Thucydides-

History of the Peloponnesian War


Volume 7

Plato-

Charmides

Lysis

Laches

Protagoras

Euthydemus

Cratylus

Phaedrus

Ion

Symposium

Meno

Euthyphro

Apology

Crito

Phaedo

Gorgias

The Republic

Timaeus

Critias

Theaetetus

Sophist

Philebus

Laws

The Seventh Letter

Volume 8

Aristotle-

Categories

On Interpretation

Prior Analytics

Posterior Analytics

Topics

Sophistical Refutations

Physics

On the Heavens

On Generation and Corruption

Meteorology

Metaphysics

On the Soul

Minor Biological Works (I do not know what this would include)

Volume 9

Aristotle-

History of Animals

Parts of Animals

On the Motion of Animals 

On the Gait of Animals

On the Generation of Animals

Nicomachean Ethics

Politics

The Athenian Constitution

Rhetoric

Poetics

Volume 10

Hippocrates-

Works:

On Airs , Waters, and Places
Aphorisms
On the Articulations
Of the Epidemics
On Fistulae
On Fractures
On Injuries of the Head
On Hemorrhoids
The Law
On Ancient Medicine
The Oath
The Book of Prognostics
Instruments of Reduction
On Regimen in Acute Diseases
On the Sacred Disease
On the Surgery
On Ulcers

Galen

On the Natural Faculties

Volume 10

Euclid-

The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements (pdf)

Archimedes-

On the Sphere and Cylinder
Measurement of a Circle
On Conoids and Spheroids
On Spirals
On the Equilibrium of Planes
On the Sand Reckoner
The Quadrature of the Parabola
On Floating Bodies
Book of Lemmas
(All the above in one fascimile)
The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems

Apollonius of Perga-
(Note:  On Conic Sections does not appear in the second edition)
On Conic Sections (facsimile)

Nicomachus of Gerasa

Introduction to Arithmetic (facsimile)


Volume 12

Lucretius-

On the Nature of Things

Epictetus-

The Discourses

Marcus Aurelius-

The Meditations


Volume 13

Virgil-

Eclogues
Georgics
Aeneid


Volume 14

Plutarch-

The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

Volume 15

P. Cornelius Tacitus-

The Annals
The Histories


Volume 16

Ptolemy-

The Almagest

NOTE:  There are no English translations of The Almagest that are out of copyright.

Nicolaus Copernicus-

On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres (pdf)

Johannes Kepler-

NOTE:  I was unable to find any free English translations of either Kepler piece;

Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (book IV and V)
The Harmonies of the World (Book 5)


Volume 17

Plotinus-

The Six Enneads


Volume 18

Augustine of Hippo-

The Confessions
The City of God (Volume 1 and Volume 2 facsimiles)
On Christian Doctrine (facsimile)



Volume 19 & 20

(NOTE: In the Great Books, vol. 19 contains the first part of summa theologica and selections from the second.  Volume 20 contains selections from the second and third.  I do not know which selections were made, so I have included all of all three parts.

Thomas Aquinas-

Summa Theologica

Part 1
First half of Part 2
Second half of Part 2
Part 3

2nd edition:

John Calvin-

Institutes on the Christian Religion



Volume 21

Dante Alighieri-

The Divine Comedy:

Inferno
Purgatorio
Paradisio


Volume 22

Geoffrey Chaucer-

(NOTE: The following links contain the original Middle English versions of the works.  I did not see any more recent translations of Troilus and Criseyde.  For The Canterbury Tales, you can find a couple other, more accessible versions here.)

Troilus and Criseyde
The Canterbury Tales


Volume 23

Niccolò Machiavelli-

The Prince

Thomas Hobbes-

Leviathan

2nd edition

Erasmus-

The Praise of Folly

Volume 24

François Rabelais-

Gargantua and Pantagruel

Volume 25

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne-

Essays

Volume 26

William Shakespeare-

The First Part of King Henry the Sixth

The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth

The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth

The Tragedy of Richard the Third

The Comedy of Errors

Titus Andronicus

The Taming of the Shrew

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Love's Labour's Lost

Romeo and Juliet

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Life and Death of King John

The Merchant of Venice

The First Part of King Henry the Fourth

The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth

Much Ado About Nothing

The Life of King Henry the Fifth

Julius Caeser

As You Like It

Volume 27

William Shakespeare-

Twelfth Night; or, What You Will

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Troilus and Cressida

All's Well That Ends Well

Measure for Measure

Othello, the Moor of Venice

King Lear

Macbeth

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

Timon of Athens

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Cymbeline

The Winter's Tale

The Tempest

The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth

Sonnets

Volume 28

William Gilbert-

On the Loadstone and the Magnetic Bodies

Galileo Galilei-

Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences

William Harvey-

On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals

On the Circulation of Blood

On the Generation of Animals

(all the above are in this one fascimile)

Volume 29

Miguel de Cervantes-

The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha

Volume 30

Sir Francis Bacon-

The Advancement of Learning

Novum Organum

New Atlantis

Volume 31

René Descartes-

Rules for the Direction of the Mind (facsimile)
Discourse on the Method
Meditations on First Philosophy (facsimile)
Objections Against the Meditations and Replies (pdf)
The Geometry (facsimile)

Benedict de Spinoza-

Ethics

2nd edition

Molière-

The School for Wives

The Critique for the School for Wives

(the above two are in this facsimile)

Tartuffe

Don Juan (facsimile)

The Miser

The Would-Be Gentleman

The Imaginary Invalid

Rean Racine-

Bérénice (facsimile)

Phèdre

Volume 32

John Milton-

English Minor Poems
Paradise Lost
Samson Agonistes (facsimile)
Areopagitica


Volume 33

Blaise Pascal-

The Provincial Letters (facsimile)
Pensées
Scientific and mathematical essays (NOTE:  I have no idea what this contains, as such there is nothing here)


Volume 34

Sir Isaac Newton-

Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (facsimile)
Optics

Christian Huygens-

Treatise on Light (facsimile)

2nd Edition

Voltaire-

Candide

Denis Diderot-

Rameau's Nephew (NOTE: I was unable to find a free English translation)



Volume 35

John Locke-

A Letter Concerning Toleration
Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

George Berkeley-

The Principles of Human Knowledge

David Hume-

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding



Volume 36

Jonathan Swift-

Gulliver's Travels

Laurence Sterne-

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

(NOTE: Tristram Shandy does not appear in the second edition of the Great Books)


Volume 37

Henrey Fielding-

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
(NOTE: Tom Jones does not appear in the second edition of the Great Books)


Volume 38

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu-

The Spirit of the Laws (facsimile: Volume 1 and Volume 2)

Jean Jacques Rousseau-

A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
A Discourse on Political Economy
The Social Contract
(All are included in this facsimile)


Volume 39

Adam Smith-

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations


Volume 40 & 41

Edward Gibbon-

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(NOTE: The above was split into two volumes of the Great Books)


Volume 42

Immanuel Kant-

Critique of Pure Reason
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
Critique of Practical Reason
Excerpts from The Metaphysics of Morals:
- Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics with a note on Conscience
- General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals
- The Science of Right

The Critique of Judgment


Volume 43


The American State Papers-

The Declaration of Independence
The Articles of Confederation
The Constitution of the United States of America
(All are included in this facsimile)

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay-

The Federalist Papers

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty
Considerations on Representative Government
Utilitarianism


2nd Edition

Søren Kierkegaard-

Fear and Trembling

Friedrich Nietzsche-

Beyond Good and Evil


Volume 44

James Boswell-

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

2nd edition

Alexis de Tocqueville-

Democracy in America


Volume 45

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier-

Elements of Chemistry

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier-

Analytical Theory of Heat (facsimile)
(NOTE: This does not appear in the second edition of the Great Books)

Michael Faraday-

Experimental Researches in Electricity (Volume 1 and facsimiles of Volume 2 and Volume 3)

2nd edition

Honoré de Balzac-

Cousin Bette


Volume 46

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel-

The Philosophy of Right (facsimile)
The Philosophy of History (facsimile)

2nd edition

Jane Austen-

Emma

George Eliot-

Middlemarch


Volume 47

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-

Faust

2nd edition

Charles Dickens-

Little Dorrit

Volume 48

Herman Melville-

Moby Dick; or, The Whale

2nd edition

Mark Twain-

Huckleberry Finn


Volume 49

Charles Darwin-

The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex


Volume 50

Karl Marx-

Capital (facsimile)

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels-

Manifesto of the Communist Party


Volume 51

Count Leo Tolstoy-

War and Peace


Volume 52

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky-

The Brothers Karamazov

2nd edition

Henrik Ibsen-

A Doll's House
The Wild Duck
Hedda Gabler
The Master Builder


Volume 53

William James-

The Principles of Psychology


Volume 54

Sigmund Freud-

(NOTE: I was unable to find many of these.  If there is no link, I was unable to find it)
The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis (facsimile)
Selected Papers on Hysteria (facsimile)
The Sexual Enlightenment of Children
The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Theory
Observations on "Wild" Psycho-Analysis
The Interpretation of Dreams
On Narcissism
Instincts and Their Vicissitudes
Repression
The Unconscious
A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
The Ego and the Id
Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety
Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
Civilization and Its Discontents (pdf)
New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis



(NOTE:  Volumes 55-60 were added as part of the second edition of the Great Books)


Volume 55

William James-

Pragmatism

Henri Bergson-

An Introduction to Metaphysics (facsimile)

John Dewey-

Experience and Education (Not in public domain)


Alfred Whitehead-

Science and the Modern World (Not in public domain)

Bertrand Russell-

The Problems of Philosophy


Martin Heidegger-

What is Metaphysics (Not in public domain)

Ludwig Wittgenstein-

Philosophical Investigations (Not in public domain)

Karl Barth-

The Word of God and the Word of Man (Not in public domain)


Volume 57

Henri Poincaré-

Science and Hypothesis

Max Planck-

Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (Not in public domain)

Alfred North Whitehead-

An Introduction to Mathematics

Albert Einstein-

Relativity: The Special and the General Theory

Arthur Eddington-

The Expanding Universe (Not in public domain)

Niels Bohr-

Selections from Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (facsimile)
(NOTE: I don't know what selections were made from Atomic Theory so you get the whole thing)
Discussion with Einstein on Epistemology (Not in public domain)

G. H. Hardy-

A Mathematician's Apology (Not in public domain)

Werner Heisenberg-

Physics and Philosophy (Not in public domain)

Erwin Schrödinger-

What Is Life? (pdf)

Theodosius Dobzhansky-

Genetics and the Origin of Species (Not in public domain)

C. H. Waddington-

The Nature of Life (Not in public domain)


Volume 57

Thorstein Veblen-

The Theory of the Leisure Class

R. H. Tawney-

The Acquisitive Society

John Maynard Keynes-

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money


Volume 58

Sir James George Frazer-

Selections from The Golden Bough 
(NOTE: I don't know what selections were made, so you get the whole thing.)

Max Weber-

Selections from Essays in Sociology (facsimile)
(NOTE: I don't know what selections were made, so you get the whole thing.)

Johan Huizinga-

The Autumn of the Middle Ages (facsimile)

Claude Lévi-Strauss-

Selections from Structural Anthropology (Not in public domain)


WARNING!!!!!!

According to Australian copyright law, any works published by authors who died prior to 1955 are in the public domain in Australia.  As such, if you aren't Australian and download certain of the following books, you could be guilty of (drumroll) copyright infringement.  So I'm just going to assume that you are all upstanding citizens who would never dare download anything in a manner that might constitute (dramatic music) copyright infringement!


Volume 59

Henry James-

The Beast in the Jungle

George Bernard Shaw-

Saint Joan (Not in public domain)

Joseph Conrad-

Heart of Darkness

Anton Chekov-

Uncle Vanya

Luigi Pirandello-

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Marcel Proust-

Remembrance of Things Past: "Swann in Love"
(NOTE: To the best I've been able to determine, "Swann in Love" is a section in the first volume of In Search of Lost Time)

Willa Cather-

A Lost Lady

Thomas Mann-

Death in Venice (Not in public domain)

James Joyce-

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man


Volume 60

Virginia Woolf-

To the Lighthouse

Franz Kafka-

The Metamorphosis

D. H. Lawrence-

The Prussian Officer

T. S. Eliot-

The Waste Land

Eugene O'Neill-

Mourning Becomes Electra

F. Scott Fitzgerald-

The Great Gatsby

William Faulkner-

A Rose for Emily (Not in public domain)

Bertolt Brecht-

Mother Courage and Her Children (Not in public domain)

Ernest Hemingway-

The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (Not in public domain)

George Orwell-

Animal Farm

Samuel Beckett-

Waiting for Godot (Not in public domain)

1927: Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

Who?
Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) appears twice on this list, the first time in 1921 for his novel MainStreet.  Between the publication of Main Street and Elmer Gantry, Lewis published his two of his seminal works, Babbit (1922) and Arrowsmith (1925).  In 1930, Lewis became the first American author to win the Nobel Prize in literature.

So what's this book about?
Elmer Gantry is a satirical attack on religious institutions of the early 1900’s. (In the name of journalistic integrity, I should point out that I am not religious but I will try to avoid putting any such bias in this review) The eponymous Elmer Gantry is a narcissistic, drunk, violent, womanizing college student who is convinced to join the church and over the course of the next twenty years, becomes the most famous preacher in the nation.  While publicly a figure of righteousness and one of the most vocal detractors of anything sinful, Gantry’s private life and motivations are incredibly self-serving and hypocritical.  He preaches because it gives him power over people.

            Elmer Gantry is a character you love to hate.  His character exemplifies the state of religious institutions of the time.  Uncoincidentally, the Gantry, after being kicked out of the seminary, becomes a salesman.  Throughout the novel, the ability to earn money for the church (and himself) becomes first and foremost of Gantry’s concerns.  Likewise, the religious organizations (Gantry starts as a Baptist, becomes an Evangelical, and later a Methodist) feel the same way.  Throughout the story, the preachers that honestly believe and live by the bible never get to preach anywhere above small towns or poor districts in the cities.  The preachers who are a help to their community are also unable to get assigned to a large church and are frequently non-believers.

            Strangely enough, Gantry believes (or at least believes that he believes) in the bible. This is important.  One of the beliefs that Gantry and the other preachers have to affirm time and again throughout the novel is that salvation is guaranteed through faith, not good works.  Elmer Gantry does bad things all the time but has faith.  

Why was it so popular?
           From the New York Times, April 13, 1927:

            “Boston bans sale of ‘Elmer Gantry’: Will prosecute anyone who sells Lewis novel under law against ‘indecent and obscene’ books.”

            The controversy over Elmer Gantry was widespread.  Preachers routinely and vehemently denounced the book.  The then-famous evangelist Billy Sunday shouted that he “could have socked Mr. Lewis so hard there would have been nothing left for the devil to leap on.”  Sunday may have had good reason to be angry, because the similarities between the then famous preacher and Gantry were many. 

            Sunday was one of two people who were in particular lampooned in Elmer Gantry.  The other was Aimee Semple McPherson who appears in the novel as the revivalist Sharon Falconer.  Like Falconer, McPherson led a series of tent-revivals across the nation, incorporating myriad forms of entertainment into her meetings.  Like Falconer, she also claimed to be a faith-healer.  Falconer, like McPherson, built her own large church.  Whereas Falconer’s burnt down, McPherson’s still stands and is the headquarters of an eight million member international Christian denomination. 

Why haven't I heard of it?
            After the initial controversy died down, I can’t imagine that Elmer Gantry would continue to revel in mainstream appeal.  While other bestselling novels on the list (The Inside of the Cup, for example) challenge religious convention, they conclude by praising the religion and its practitioners, even if criticizing certain practices.  From what I’ve seen so far, for a book to remain popular, it has to do at least one of a few things: a) get taught in schools (e.g. The Grapes of Wrath)  b)have an author that has remained famous (e.g. Dharma Bums)   c) have a popular film adaptation (e.g. The Godfather) d) garner a cult following (The Lord of the Rings, before the movies) or e) become regarded as ‘a classic’ (e.g. Absalom, Absalom).  While Elmer Gantry had a fairly popular film adaptation in 1960, the novel is far too controversial to get taught in schools, Lewis has himself declined in popularity, and there does not seem to be a strong community centered around Lewis’s works.  However, with certain changes in popular ideology, I would not be surprised if Elmer Gantry didn’t have a bit of a revival in the coming years.  

Should I read it?

            Yes.  Whatever your opinions, politically or religiously, Elmer Gantry provides a look at corruption and mass deception that is both incredible and down-to-earth.

Also published in 1927:  
Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Herman Hesse - Steppenwolf
Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time (final volume)
Upton Sinclair - Oil!
Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse

Sources:

Lewis, Sinclair. Elmer Gantry. 1927. New York: Dell Publishing Co. 1960.
Schorer, Mark. Sinclair Lewis: An American Life. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1961. Print.

1926: The Private Life of Helen of Troy by John Erskine

Who?

John Erskine (1879 – 1951) was born in New York City. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1903 and honorary doctorates from nine other universities since then, in subjects ranging from music to education. He was an English professor at Amherst College then Columbia University. He was also a concert pianist, and the first president of the Julliard School of Music. Erskine’s literature program at Columbia is widely accepted to have been the groundwork for the “Great Books” movement.

So What's this book about?

       The Private Life of Helen of Troy takes place after the events in The Iliad, with Menelaus bringing Helen back to Sparta after sparing her life at the behest of Agamemnon.  Once home, they have to deal with their daughter Hermione’s potential engagement to Orestes, their maid Adraste’s relationship with Damastor, the son of a ‘good family,’ and scandal over Helen’s flight to Troy with Paris.  Other figures from Greek mythology play a part in the story, Achilles’s son, Pyrrhus, Clytemnestra, and Telemachus all have impact on the story.

Unfortunately, it turns into a particularly slow-paced domestic drama.  One thing I noticed when reading is that a vast majority of the book is dialogue, or rather, characters aiming monologues at each other.  Most of the characters seem to exist solely so Helen can explain her philosophies to them.  And in almost every scene where Helen is absent, other characters are discussing Helen’s philosophy.  While her ideas are interesting, they are expressed in a repetitive manner that causes the story to drag.

As far as the story itself goes, it seems like a soap opera, except all the back-stabbing and evil plotting goes on off-screen, or in the case of the novel, the characters are later told about it instead of actually seeing it done. (NOTE: I am aware that this was a common method of presenting action in ancient Greek drama.  Erskine does have a good knowledge of the Greeks, but the conventions of two-thousand year-old theater do not work too well in this novel.)  The problem I had with this novel is essentially the same problem I had with Sense and Sensibility: The characters’ ideologies are well explained at the beginning of the novel, so we know exactly what they’re going to say each of the hundred times they say it.

Why was it so popular?

John Erskine had a number of non-fiction and fiction books published prior to the publication of The Private Life of Helen of Troy, so he was not a newcomer to the publishing world.  As far as what made Helen popular, the protagonist’s philosophies are contradictory to the ‘traditional values’ of the time, without being too controversial. A combination of soap-opera drama and classical setting would garner a large audience.

Why haven't I heard of it?

The philosophies put forward in the novel are no longer controversial, rather they seem in many ways pretty standard in how they regard love, responsibility, honesty, etc.  Whereas an audience that is held captive by new ideas would be enthralled, a modern audience would probably just be bored.

Should I read it?
              No.  It isn't 'bad' so much as it is uninteresting.


Published in 1926:

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

The Castle - Franz Kafka

Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne



Sources: 


Erskine, John. The Private Life of Helen of Troy. 1925. New York: F. Ungar Publishing      Company. 1957. Print.

Kunitz, Stanley. Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern      Literature. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company. 1942. Print.

 



Great Gatsby Easter Egg

The Great Gatsby comes out in theaters tomorrow and I thought I 'd commemorate that with a post about the famous book cover:

You've probably seen this a thousand times, but you may have never noticed the hidden image:    

1925: Soundings by A. Hamilton Gibbs

Who?

            Arthur Hamilton Gibbs (1888 – 1964) was born in London.  He was the youngest of three brothers who all had successful careers in writing (his brothers were Cosmo Hamilton, whose success was mainly as a playwright, and Sir Philip Hamilton Gibbs, who was knighted in response to his reporting on the first world war).  Arthur served in World War One as an artillery officer in Egypt, France, and Serbia.  In 1919 he married Bostonian attorney Jeanette Phillips, and in 1920 moved permanently to the United States.  He became a naturalized American citizen soon after.

So what's this book about?           
         Soundings tells the story of Nancy Hawthorne, an artist’s daughter from a small town in England as she emerges into adulthood.  Her father, who has raised her to operate outside pointless convention, decides she should spend a year travelling abroad to discover herself.  In France, she befriends an American girl.  When the American girl’s brother and his roommate, Bob, come to visit, she falls in love with Bob. 

            The story is, by and large, pretty melodramatic.  This, among other aspects of the story, really undermines the themes of not shaming sexuality and overthrowing unfair conventions.  It’s this inconsistency that was my biggest problem with Soundings. It seems to revel in the conventions it criticizes. It's stuck half-way between a critique of society and a potboiler romance, but refuses to commit itself to either role.

Why was it so popular?
            Soundings is unconventional enough to be controversial, but inoffensive enough to be popular. It embraces some of the newly popular (at the time) ideas about women’s freedom and sexuality, without letting the characters benefit by it. 

Why haven't I heard of it? 
           The reasons I listed for its popularity above are the same reasons it can’t be popular now.  The ‘new ideas’ have become old ideas.  If the story were more about how society were enforcing these conventions on the protagonist, it may have held up better, but almost everyone she meets is supportive of her and her ideology. 

Should I read it?
          Not unless you really like romance novels.  Even taking into account the inconsistencies in the story's message(s), it is a decent, well-written, romance.  The criticisms of societal conventions are valid, but they are no longer as revolutionary as they once were.  There are certainly worse romance novels out there, but there are better, as well.

Also published in 1925:
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald    
The Trial  - Franz Kafka  
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf  
The Hollow Men - T. S. Eliot

Sources:    

Gibbs, A. Hamilton.  Soundings. Little Brown and Company. 1925. Print.

Kunitz, Stanley.  Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern       Literature. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company. 1942. Print.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr.

I'm a big fan of classic sci-fi and post-apocalyptic stories.  So I finally got around to reading Miller's modern classic, A Canticle for Leibowitz.

I'm also a sucker for awesome cover designs

 

If you're unfamiliar with the premise, the story follows a monastic order over about two millenia following a civilization ending nuclear war.  Separated into three parts, taking place in the 26th, 32nd, and 38th century, respectively, the novel shows not only how society rebuilds itself, but how it makes sense of its past. 

Mythopoeisis is a subject of great interest for me, personally, and one that Miller handled very well.  Not only do we see how the lives and events within the monastic order of St. Leibowitz become mythologized, but we see how something as extreme as nuclear holocaust can be folded into religion:

"It was said that God, in order to test mankind which had become swelled with pride as in the time of Noah, had commanded the wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to devise great engines of war such as had never before been upon the Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell, and that God had suffered these magi to place the weapons in the hands of princes, and to say to each prince, "Only because the enemies have such a thing have we devised this for thee, in order that they may know that thou hast it also, and fear to strike. See to it, m'Lord, that thou fearest them as much as they shall now fear thee, that none may unleash this dread thing which we have wrought."

 

But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself, If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy those others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine.

 

Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge."   

 

As you could probably guess, religion plays a large role in the story.  Like I said, I'm interested in mythopoeisis, so the religious aspect works pretty well in that regard (incidentally, I've just started reading Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible, which seems to be an insightful look at much the same subject).       

 

If you're a fan of science fiction, post-apocalyptic stories, or just good original writing, I'd suggest picking up a copy.

1924: So Big by Edna Ferber

Who?

Edna Ferber (1885-1968) was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan to a Jewish family.  In her childhood, her family moved across the Midwest.  After graduating high school, she briefly worked as a journalist for the Appleton Daily Crescent and the Milwaukee Journal.  Her writing career was strong, winning the Pulitzer Prize for So Big (1924) and was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, performers, and critics that met daily at the Algonquin hotel in New York which included the likes of Dorothy Parker and Harpo Marx. 

            Ferber never married nor had children.  Most reports of serious romantic relationships are based largely on speculation and rumor.  But she had a career that spanned over fifty years.  In 1931, her novel Cimarron (1929) became the third film to win an Oscar for best picture.  Giant (1952) is probably her best known work at present, due in no small part to the film version starring James Dean. 

So what's this book about?           

            So Big is titled after the protagonist’s son’s nickname.  The protagonist is Selina De Jong nee Peake, a young woman who goes to the Dutch faming community on the outskirts of Chicago as a schoolteacher.  Despite the culture shock, she soon falls for and marries the farmer Pervus De Jong.  When Pervus dies, Selina raises her son while taking over the farm.

            While the story as I’ve described it so far may not seem particularly special, Selina De Jong is an incredibly well-drawn character.  Her relationship with the town and, more importantly, her relationship with her son as a child and when he becomes a successful bond broker, is beautifully rendered. 
            So Big is as much a portrait of Dutch farming communities at the turn of the century as it is a record of how the world changed from the 1890s to the 1920s. 

Why was it so popular?

            So Big, like Main Street, and to one extent or another, many of the books so far on the list, deals with role of immigrants and the poor in society, and more specifically, the undeserved disdain they receive from those that are better off.  But not just anyone that is ‘better off.’  So Big isn’t taking a stance against wealth, but against wealth for the sake of wealth.  One of the novel’s supporting characters is a packing industry tycoon, one of the many of his kind that sprung into existence in the before the anti-trust laws dissolved their empires.  This character is shown favorably.  He built his company from the ground up and, as evidenced by his continued friendship with his low-level employees and personal affectations, has never forgotten where he came from.  His children and grandchildren are not represented as well and it is these characters (and those of their ilk) that are seen as being disdainful to the poor.

        Also, within the year of 1924, a silent film version was made featuring the extremely popular Colleen Moore.

If you wanted to see the film, you're out of luck.  It's considered a lost film, with only copies of the trailer existing.

           

Why haven't I heard of it?
           While the topic of poor migrant workers is as valid today as it was ninety years ago, the nature of the topic has changed.  We no longer have large numbers of immigrant independent small farm owners.  Additionally, the subject of “turn of the century Dutch immigrant farming community” does not sound interesting.

Should I read it?
          Yes.  Well-written with a good story, the best thing about So Big is the characters.  Even the bit characters are complex enough to dig into.  Even if you’re like me, and the subject is not an enticement, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.      

Also published in 1924:

The Land That Time Forgot - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Billy Budd, Sailor - Herman Melville

Sources:

Ferber, Edna. So Big. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & co. 1924.

Gilbert, Julie Goldsmith.  Ferber, a biography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. 1978.