Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

I regard books in my library in much the same way that a sea captain regards the charts in his chart-room. It is manifestly impossible for a sea captain to carry in his head the memory of all the reefs, rocks, shoals, harbors, points, lighthouses, beacons, and buoys of all the coasts of all the world; and no sea captain ever endeavors to store his head with such a mass of knowledge. What he does is to know his way about in the chartroom, and when he picks up a new coast, he takes out the proper chart and has immediate access to all information about that new coast. So it should be with books.

I, for one, never can have too many books; nor can my books cover too many subjects. I may never read them all, but they are always there, and I never know what strange coast I am going to pick up at any time in sailing the world of knowledge. –Jack London

Given the prominent role that books played in Jack London’s life, it’s no surprise that part of what he most looked forward to in building Wolf House — his dream home — was being able to retreat to its large study, underneath which, connected by a spiral staircase, would sit a large library where he could store his collection of 15,000 books (which was so large, it had until then been stockpiled in various locations).

Just a small list:

Signa by Ouida
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Rudyard Kipling’s complete works — whom he read “quite steadily”
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Herbert Spencer’s works
A Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche
Das Kapital by Karl Marx
Paradise Lost by John Milton — companion on his first voyage to the Yukon
Through the Gold Fields of Alaska by Harry De Windt — “as well as other books about the region . . . the Klondike was London’s great and most important adventure and literary resource”
William Shakespeare’s complete works
Voices of the Night by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning
Lord Alfred Tennyson’s works
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
Robert Louis Stevenson’s complete works
Tales of Soldiers and Civilians and Other Stories by Ambrose Bierce
The Cynic’s Word Book by Ambrose Bierce (later retitled The Devil’s Dictionary)
The Black Riders and Other Lines by Stephen Crane
The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Primer of Philosophy by Paul Carus
Foster’s Complete Hoyle (card game encyclopedia)
Leo Tolstoy’s complete works
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Joseph Conrad’s complete works (only near the end of his life did London feel worthy of writing letters to Conrad as a peer)
The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman
Anecdotes of Dogs by Edward Jesse — “provided him with information about canine behavior”
My Dogs In The Northlandby Egerton Young — “gave him accurate data about the traits of sled dogs”
Elinor Glyn’s novels — which London liked so much he wrote the author asking for autographed copies
The Social Unrest: Studies in Labor and Socialist Movements by John Brooks
Henrik Ibsen’s plays
Our Benevolent Feudalism by William James Ghent
Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan
Rooseveltian fact and fable / by Mrs. Annie Riley Hale ; illustrated by Will H. Chandlee. 1912 Leather Bound by Annie Hale
Oscar Wilde’s non-fiction works
Sailing Alone around the World by Joshua Slocum — read with Charmian, who wrote: “It was the book that got us started planning our own trip”
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair — read multiple times, including once by Charmian who read it aloud to Jack
The Fat of the Land: The Story of an American Farm by John Streeter — for building his ranch; “especially for information about the best kind of chickens to buy, the perfect hog pen, and other helpful farming hints”
Two Years Before the Mast: A Sailor's Life at Sea by Richard Dana — for which he wrote an introduction
The Will to Believe, Human Immortality and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James
Thomas Carlyle’s works
Foxe's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
Geronimo: My Life by Geronimo
Studies In Deductive Logic - A Manual For Students by William Jevons
Fishing for Pleasure and Catching It. Two Chapters on Angling in North Wales by Edward Marston
Moby-Dick or, The Whaleby Herman Melville
Typee by Herman Melville
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Edgar Allan Poe’s complete works
Matthew Arnold’s works
John Ruskin’s works
The Practice of Medicine with Especial Reference to the Use of Active Principles and Other Definite Methods by William Francis Waugh
Psychology of the Unconscious by Carl Jung — London wrote that “It is big stuff”; his copy contains over 300 notations, more than any other in his library

I really want to read Cyrano de Bergerac sometime. I think I'll read The Social Contract after I finish Democracy in America. Impressive library.

Melanie I found it quite interesting. Thought I had a few books lol

Planning on finishing some links later today hopefully.

I've read 16. Cyrano de Bergerac is a lovely play.