Literary Taste: How to Form it: With Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of English Literature is a long essay by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1909, with a revised edition by his friend Frank Swinnerton appearing in 1937. It includes a long list of recommended books, every item individually costed.
Both the essay and the list were very influential, although Bennett's decision to include only books originally written in English (along with a handful of Latin works) makes it extremely insular compared with most other attempts at compiling a literary canon.
Outline Preface (unnumbered) (only found in Swinnerton edition) The Aim Your Particular Case Why a Classic is a Classic Where to Begin How to Read a Classic (using Charles Lamb's Dream Children) The Question of Style Wrestling with an Author System in Reading Verse (Hazlitt's On Poetry in General, Isaiah ch. 40, Wordsworth's The Brothers, E. Browning's Aurora Leigh) Broad Counsels An English Library: Period I An English Library: Period II An English Library: Period III An English Library: Period IV (possibly with appendix) (only found in Swinnerton edition) Mental Stocktaking
Library Period IV only appears in the edition by Swinnerton.
The symbol * denotes things excluded from Swinnerton's edition. The symbol † denotes items available in Swinnerton's edition only.
Period I (to 1700)
Prose Venerable Bede: Ecclesiastical History (Latin) The Paston Letters† Hugh Latimer: Sermons† Sir Thomas Malory: Morte d'Arthur Sir Thomas More: Utopia (Latin) George Cavendish: Life of Cardinal Wolsey Richard Hakluyt: Voyages Richard Hooker: Ecclesiastical Polity Francis Bacon: Essays and Advancement of Learning Thomas Dekker (poet): The Gul's Horn-Book Lord Herbert of Cherbury: Autobiography* Thomas Lodge: Rosalynde John Selden: Table Talk Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan James Howell: Familiar Letters Sir Thomas Browne: Religio Medici, Urn Burial Jeremy Taylor: Holy Living and Holy Dying Izaak Walton: The Compleat Angler John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress Sir William Temple: Essay on Gardens of Epicurus* Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple† John Evelyn: Diary Samuel Pepys: Diary
Poetry Beowulf Everyman and other Interludes† William Langland: Piers Plowman† Geoffrey Chaucer Nicolas Udall: Ralph Roister Doister Edmund Spenser Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy† Robert Greene: The Tragical Reign of Selimus Michael Drayton Christopher Marlowe William Shakespeare Thomas Campion Ben Jonson: plays John Donne: poems and sermons John Webster, Cyril Tourneur* and John Ford: plays Philip Massinger: plays Beaumont and Fletcher: plays George Herbert: "The Temple" Robert Herrick Edmund Waller Sir John Suckling Abraham Cowley* Richard Crashaw Henry Vaughan Samuel Butler: Hudibras John Milton: Areopagitica, other essays, and poems Andrew Marvell John Dryden: Essay of Dramatick Poesie†, and poems Thomas Percy: Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (ed.) Arber's Anthologies* John Marston, plays* (omitted from list because out of print)
Period II (1700-1800)
Prose John Locke: Two Treatises of Government Sir Isaac Newton: Principia* Gilbert Burnet: History of His Own Time William Wycherley: plays William Congreve Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels, The Tale of a Tub; The Battle of the Books† Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe, A Journal of the Plague Year Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele: The Spectator William Law: A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life Colley Cibber: Autobiography† Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Letters George Berkeley: A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge Samuel Richardson: Clarissa John Wesley: Journal Henry Fielding: Tom Jones, Amelia, Joseph Andrews David Hume: essays Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto; Letters† William Thomas Beckford: Vathek† Samuel Johnson: Rasselas, Lives of the Poets Tobias Smollett: Humphrey Clinker, Travels through France and Italy Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations James Boswell: Life of Johnson Oliver Goldsmith Henry Mackenzie: The Man of Feeling Sir Joshua Reynolds: Discourses on Art Edmund Burke: Writings on France, Thoughts on the Present Discontents Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Autobiography† Thomas Paine: The Rights of Man Richard Brinsley Sheridan: plays Fanny Burney: Evelina Gilbert White: The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne Arthur Young: Travels in France Mungo Park: Travels Jeremy Bentham: Introduction to the Principles of Morals* Thomas Robert Malthus: An Essay on the Principle of Population William Godwin: Caleb Williams* Maria Edgeworth: Helen Jane Austen James Morier: Hadji Baba*
Poetry Thomas Otway: Venice Preserved Matthew Prior: Poems on Several Occasions John Gay Alexander Pope Isaac Watts: hymns James Thomson Charles Wesley: hymns Samuel Johnson Oliver Goldsmith Thomas Gray William Collins James Macpherson: Ossian* Thomas Chatterton William Cowper George Crabbe William Blake William Lisle Bowles* Hartley Coleridge* Robert Burns
Period III (1800-1900)
Novelists Sir Walter Scott: Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian, Quentin Durward, Redgauntlet, Ivanhoe, The Pirate†, The Antiquary† Thomas Love Peacock Mary Russell Mitford: Our Village Michael Scott: Tom Cringle's Log Frederick Marryat: The King's Own†, Mr Midshipman Easy John Galt: Annals of the Parish, The Ayrshire Legatees Susan Ferrier: Marriage Douglas William Jerrold: Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures* Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii Charles Lever: Harry Lorrequer Harrison Ainsworth: Rookwood†, The Tower of London George Borrow: Lavengro, The Romany Rye†, The Bible in Spain Benjamin Disraeli: Sybil, Coningsby William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair, The History of Henry Esmond, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.*, Roundabout Papers* Charles Dickens Charles Reade: The Cloister and the Hearth Anthony Trollope: The Warden†, Barchester Towers, Framley Parsonage, The Last Chronicle of Barset†, Autobiography† Charles Kingsley: Westward Ho! Henry Kingsley: Ravenshoe Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë; Anne Brontë† Elizabeth Gaskell: Cranford, Mary Barton†, North and South†, The Life of Charlotte Bronte George Eliot: Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch† George Whyte-Melville: The Gladiators George Macdonald: Malcolm*, Sir Gibbie† Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White, The Moonstone† R. D. Blackmore: Lorna Doone Samuel Butler: Erewhon, The Way of All Flesh†, Notebooks† Laurence Oliphant: Altiora Peto* Margaret Oliphant: Salem Chapel Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass† Joseph Henry Shorthouse: John Inglesant Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped (novel)†, The Master of Ballantrae, The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables†, Virginibus Puerisque George Gissing: The Odd Women*, Thyrza†, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft†
Non-novelists Charles Lamb Walter Savage Landor: Imaginary Conversations, poems Leigh Hunt: Autobiography†, Essays and Sketches William Cobbett William Hazlitt: Spirit of the Age*, The English Poets, The English Comic Writers, Table Talk†, The Plain Speaker† Francis Jeffrey: Essays from The Edinburgh Review Thomas de Quincey Sydney Smith: Selected Papers* George Finlay: Byzantine Empire* John G. Lockhart: Life of Scott* Agnes Strickland: Life of Queen Elizabeth* Hugh Miller: Old Red Sandstone* John Henry Newman: Apologia Pro Vita Sua Lord Macaulay: History of England, Essays A. P. Stanley: Memorials of Canterbury* Thomas Carlyle: The French Revolution: A History, Cromwell, Sartor Resartus, Heroes and Hero-Worship, Latter-Day Pamphlets* Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species, The Voyage of the Beagle Alexander William Kinglake: Eothen John Stuart Mill: Auguste Comte and Positivism*; Autobiography†, On Liberty†, Representative Government† John Brown: Horae Subsecivae, Rab and his Friends* Sir Arthur Helps: Friends in Council* Mark Pattison: Life of Milton* F. W. Robertson: On Religion and Life* Benjamin Jowett: Interpretation of Scripture* Alexander Smith: Dreamthorpe Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women George Henry Lewes: Principles of Success in Literature*, Life of Goethe† Alexander Bain: Mind and Body James Anthony Froude: Short Studies on Great Subjects John Tyndall: Glaciers of the Alps Sir Henry Maine: Ancient Law John Ruskin: Seven Lamps of Architecture, Sesame and Lilies, The Stones of Venice Herbert Spencer: First Principles, Essays on Education Sir Richard Francis Burton: Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Mecca*, First Footsteps in East Africa† John Hanning Speke: Sources of the Nile Thomas Henry Huxley: Man's Place in Nature, Lectures and Lay Sermons E. A. Freeman: Europe* William Stubbs: Early Plantagenets* Winwood Reade: The Martyrdom of Man† Walter Bagehot: Lombard Street*, Literary Studies† Walter Pater: Imaginary Portraits, Marius the Epicurean Richard Holt Hutton: Cardinal Newman* Richard Jefferies: The Story of My Heart† Sir John Seeley: Ecce Homo David Masson: Thomas de Quincey* Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet: Life of Macaulay† John Richard Green: A Short History of the English People Sir Leslie Stephen: Pope* Lord Acton: On the Study of History* Mandell Creighton: The Age of Elizabeth* Oscar Wilde† F. W. H. Myers: Wordsworth*, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death† Mark Rutherford: Pages from a Journal†
Poets William Wordsworth Sir Walter Scott Robert Southey Samuel Taylor Coleridge John Keats Percy Bysshe Shelley Lord Byron Thomas Hood James and Horace Smith: Rejected Addresses John Keble: The Christian Year George Darley Thomas Lovell Beddoes Thomas Moore James Clarence Mangan Winthrop Mackworth Praed Robert Stephen Hawker: Cornish Ballads Edward FitzGerald: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam P. J. Bailey: Festus* Arthur Hugh Clough Lord Tennyson Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning P. B. Marston: Song-tide* Aubrey Thomas de Vere: Legends of St Patrick* Matthew Arnold: poems and essays Coventry Patmore Sydney Dobell* Eric Mackay: Love-letters of a Violinist* T. E. Brown C. S. Calverley: Verses, Translations and Fly-Leaves Edward Lear: A Book of Nonsense† D. G. Rossetti Christina Rossetti: "Goblin Market" James Thomson: "The City of Dreadful Night" Jean Ingelow William Morris Augusta Webster* Gerard Manley Hopkins† W. E. Henley Francis Thompson
Period IV (1900-1935)†
Novelists and dramatists George Meredith: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, The Egoist, Evan Harrington, An Essay on Comedy, poems Thomas Hardy: The Dynasts, Far from the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, The Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, poems Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, Plain Tales from the Hills, Many Inventions, The Day's Work, Soldiers Three, Barrack-Room Ballads Henry James: Daisy Miller, The Spoils of Poynton, The Ambassadors George Moore: Confessions of a Young Man, Esther Waters, The Brook Kerith George Bernard Shaw: Plays Pleasant, Plays Unpleasant, Man and Superman, Saint Joan, The Apple Cart Joseph Conrad: The Mirror of the Sea, Lord Jim, Youth J. M. Barrie: The Admirable Crichton, Dear Brutus, Margaret Ogilvy, A Widow in Thrums Allan Monkhouse: Mary Broome Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes W. W. Jacobs: Many Cargoes H. G. Wells: The Time Machine, The Wheels of Chance, Short Stories, Tono-Bungay, The History of Mr Polly Arnold Bennett: The Old Wives' Tale, Lord Raingo, Books and Persons, The Truth about an Author John Galsworthy: The Forsyte Saga, plays Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage, Ashenden, The Gentleman in the Parlour, plays (The Circle, The Constant Wife, The Bread-Winner) Elizabeth von Arnim: Vera