[275a] Taine’s Ancient Régime is a good introduction to the conditions which made the French Revolution. It forms the first volume of Les Origines de la France Contemporaine, and may be read in a translation by John Durand, published by Dalby, Isbister & Co. in 1877.
[275b] The Life of Napoleon has been written by many pens, in our own day most competently by Dr. Holland Rose (2 vols. Bell); but a good account of the Emperor, indispensable for some particulars and an undoubted classic, is that by de Bourrienne, Napoleon’s private secretary, published in an English translation, in 4 volumes, by Bentley in 1836.
[275c] Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville, may be had in a translation by Henry Reeve, published in 2 volumes by the Longmans. Read also A History of the United States by C. Benjamin Andrews, 2 volumes (Smith, Elder), and above all the American Commonwealth, by James Bryce, 2 volumes (Macmillan).
[275d] The Compleat Angler of Isaac Walton may be purchased in many forms. I have a fine library edition edited by that prince of living anglers, Mr. R. B. Marston, called The Lea and Dove Edition, this being the 100th edition of the book (Sampson Low, 1888). I have also an edition edited by George A. B. Dewar, with an Introduction by Sir Edward Grey and Etchings by William Strang and D. Y. Cameron, 2 volumes (Freemantle), and a 1 volume edition published by Ingram & Cooke in the Illustrated Library.
[276a] There are many editions of Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selbourne to be commended. Three that are in my library are (1) edited with an Introduction and Notes by L. C. Miall and W. Warde Fowler (Methuen); (2) edited with Notes by Grant Allen, illustrated by Edmund H. New (John Lane); (3) rearranged and classified under subjects by Charles Mosley (Elliot Stock).
[276b] Of Boswell’s Life of Johnson there are innumerable editions. The special enthusiast will not be happy until he possesses Dr. Birkbeck Hill’s edition in 6 volumes (Clarendon Press). The most satisfactory 1 volume edition is that published on thin paper by Henry Frowde. I have in my library also a copy of the first edition of Boswell in 2 volumes. It was published by Henry Baldwin in 1791.
[276c] The best edition of Lockhart’s Life of Scott is that published in 10 volumes by Jack of Edinburgh. Readers should beware of abridgments, although one of these was made by Lockhart himself. The whole eighty-five chapters are worth reading, even in the 1 volume edition published by A. & C. Black.
[276d] Pepys’s Diary can be obtained in Bohn’s Library or in Newnes’ Thin Paper Classics, but Pepys should only be read under Mr. H. B. Wheatley’s guidance. A cheap edition of his book, in 8 volumes, has recently been published by George Bell & Sons. I have No. 2 of the large paper edition of this book, No. 1 having gone to Pepys’s own college of Brazenose, where the Pepys cypher is preserved.
[277a] Until recently one knew Walpole’s Letters only through Peter Cunningham’s edition, in 9 volumes (Bentley), and this has still exclusive matter for the enthusiast, Cunningham’s Introduction to wit; but the Clarendon Press has now published Walpole’s Letters, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee, in 16 volumes, or in 8. Here are to be found more letters than in any previous edition.
[277b] The Memoirs of Count de Gramont, by Anthony, Count Hamilton, can be obtained in splendid type, unannotated, in an edition published by Arthur L. Humphreys. A well-illustrated and well-edited edition is that published by Bickers of London and Scribner of New York, edited by Allan Fea.