[265b] The best one-volume Tennyson is issued by the Macmillans, who still hold certain copyrights. The Library Edition of Tennyson, with the Biography included in the twelve volumes, is a desirable acquisition.
[265c] Not all the sixteen volumes of the Library Edition of Browning pay for perusal. The most convenient form is that of the two-volume edition (Smith, Elder & Co.), with notes by Augustine Birrell.
[265d] Milton’s Poetical Works as annotated by David Masson (Macmillan) make the standard library edition, and the same publishers have given us the best one-volume Milton in the Globe Library, with an introduction by Professor Masson, Milton’s one effective biographer.
[266a] The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments is first introduced to us all as a children’s story-book. Tennyson has placed on record his own early memories:—
“In sooth it was a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.”
But the collector of the hundred best books will do well to read the Arabian Nights in the translation by Edward William Lane, edited by Stanley Lane Poole, in 4 volumes, for George Bell & Sons.
[266b] The most satisfactory translation of Cervantes’s great romance is that made by John Ormesby, revised and edited by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, published by Gowans & Gray in 4 shilling volumes.
[266c] The Pilgrim’s Progress is presented in a hundred forms. The present writer first read it in a penny edition. It should be possessed by the book-lover in a volume of the Cambridge English Classics, in which Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim’s Progress are given together, edited by Dr. John Brown, and published by the Cambridge University Press.
[266d] Schoolboys, notwithstanding Macaulay, usually know but few good books, but every schoolboy knows Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in one form or another. The maker of a library will prefer it as a Volume of Defoe’s Works (J. M. Dent), or as Volume VII of Defoe’s Novels and Miscellaneous Works (Bell & Sons). There are many good shilling editions of the book by itself, but Defoe should be read in many of his works and particularly in Moll Flanders.
[267a] As with Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels can be obtained in many cheap forms, but it is well that it should be obtained as Volume VIII of Swift’s Prose Works, published in Bohn’s Libraries by George Bell & Sons. There has not been a really good edition of Swift’s works since Scott’s monumental book.