A Compendium of World Classical Literature

By John Antonakos

The purpose of this book is to encourage readers to read classical books. By perusing this book and recognizing the names of various noted authors, one will be further inclined to pursue the literature that these authors have composed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524654399

John Antonakos

John Antonakos is a retired electrical engineer who holds degrees in physics and electrical engineering. He was employed as an electrical engineer for over forty years, thirty-two of which were with the United States Army at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. He has always been interested in history, biography, language and philosophy, and has read widely in these fields. Being of Greek background, he is especially interested in exploring his roots. Because of these interests he has written the following books: Noted Greeks of Antiquity, Noted Greeks of the Middle Ages, The Greek American Community of Essex County, N.J., The Maniates of Newark, N.J., The Greek Handbook, A Compendium of World Classical Literature, A Proposed International Alphabet, English Spelling and Pronunciation Guide, and Life’s Objective.

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© 2016 John Antonakos. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse    02/23/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5246-5440-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-5439-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016920601

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Dedicated to my beloved granddaughters

Katherine and Elizabeth

Introduction

There are three reasons why we read. We read either to be informed, entertained, or inspired. Commercial reading material is of three types- newspapers, periodicals, and books. The former two types of reading material are concerned with things that are mostly of a passing nature. Many books, though contain things that are of a lasting nature. Whatever is of true worth has been preserved in books. It therefore behooves us to read books and in this manner enrich our lives.

This book is an attempt to compile the most worthwhile books of the world. A classical book is one that has withstood the test of time. It is one that has been read and appreciated throughout the ages. Although most of the books listed in this volume are from the Western World, it should be noted that it contains ample authors from the rest of the world.

In the past five hundred years there has been an accelerated increase in the number of books that have been produced. This has been due to the invention of the printing press and to the great increase of man’s knowledge in this period. Consequently, the number of books recorded here is quite large.

How then can a person select the books he thinks he would like to read? Here is a suggested procedure. All of man’s activities fall into the following categories: Religion, Philosophy, Physical Science, Social Science, Art, Music, Literature, and Recreation. A particular person might be interested in one or possibly all of the aforementioned categories. As an example, one may only have an interest in the Literature category. For one only interested in the Literature category, this book lists a wide selection of novels and essays he can choose from.

There are many books you have heard of but never read, and their names are stored in your mind. Look over the authors and titles in this book and mark down those you think you would like to read.

This compendium can guide your children in selecting good books to read. Of the many good things that you give your children, instill in them the desire to read good books.

Read each author entry as follows: The author’s name is listed first, which may be a pen name. Look in Author Pen and Actual Names at the end of this Compendium to determine this. Following the author’s name is a country abbreviation. The country indicated is the author’s birthplace. The meaning of these abbreviations are listed under Author Nationality Abbreviations. Next listed are the author’s birth and death dates. The types of works and the works themselves are then listed alphabetically. The type of work abbreviation meanings are listed under Subject Abbreviations.

Author Nationality Abbreviations

Subject Abbreviations

Authors’ Table of Contents

A

Abelard, Peter

Achilles Tatius

Adams, Henry Brooks

Addison, Joseph

Aelian

Aelianus Tacticus

Aeneas of Gaza

Aeschines of Athens

Aeschylus

Aesop

Aesop of Samos

Agee, James Rufus

Agnon, Shmuel Yosef

Aiken, Conrad

Ainsworth, William Harrrison

Albee, Edward

Alcott, Louisa May

Alfieri, Count Vittorio

Algren, Nelson

Amis, Kingsley

Anacreon

Andersen, Hans Christian

Anderson, Sherwood

Anouilh, Jean

Anselm

Apollinaire, Guillaume

Apollonius of Rhodes

Appian of Alexandria

Apuleius

Aquinas, St. Thomas

Aratus

Archimedes

Aristo, Ludovico

Aristophanes

Aristotle

Armah, Ayi Kweh

Arnold, Matthew

Arrian

Asclepiodotus

Ashbery, John

Asimov, Isaac

Atwood, Margaret

Auchincloss, Louis

Auden, W. H.

Audubon, John James

Augustine of Hippo

Aurelius, Marcus

Austen, Jane

Ayer, Alfred Jules

B

Bacchylides

Bacon, Sir Francis

Baldwin, James

Balzac, Honeré de

Barbusse, Henri

Barca, Pedro Calderón de la

Barrie, Baronet Sir J. M.

Barry, Philip

Barth, John

Barthelme, Donald

Bartlett, John

Basho

Baudelaire, Pierre Charles

Baum, L. Frank

Battie, Ann

Baumarchais, Pierre

Baumont, Francis

Beckett, Samuel

Bede

Beerbohm, Sir Max

Bellamy, Edward

Belloc, Hilaire

Bellow, Saul

Benchley, Robert

Benedict, Ruth

Benét, Stephen Vincent

Benét, William Rose

Bennett, Arnold

Bentham, Jeremy

Béranger, Pierre-Jean de

Bergson, Henri

Berkeley, George

Beti, Mongo

Bierce, Ambrose

Bishop, Elizabeth

Bion of Phlossa

Blake, William

Blackmore, R. D.

Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente

Blok, Alexander

Boccaccio, Giovanni

Boethius

Boileau

Böll, Heinrich

Bontemps, Arna

Boole, George

Borges, Jorge Luis

Borrow, George

Boswell, James

Bowles, Paul

Bowra, Sir Maurice

Boyle, Kay

Boyle, Robert

Bradbury, Ray

Bradstreet, Anne

Brecht, Bertolt

Breton, André

Brontë, Anne

Brontë, Charlotte

Brontë, Emily

Brooks, Gwendolyn

Brown, Charles Brockden

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Browning, Robert

Bruno, Giordano

Buber, Martin

Buck, Pearl

Bulgakov, Mikhail

Bullen, Frank Thomas

Bulfinch, Thomas

Bulwer-Lytton, Baron Edward

Bunyan, John

Burckhardt, Jacob

Burgess, Anthony

Burns, Robert

Burroughs, William S.

Bury, John Bagnell

Butler, Samuel

Byrne, Donn

Byron, Lord

C

Caesar, Julius

Caldwell, Erskine

Callimachus

Callistratus

Calvin, John

Calvino, Italy

Camoens, Luis vas de

Campanella, Tommaso

Camus, Albert

Canetti, Elias

Cao Xueqin

Capek, Karel

Capote, Truman

Carducci, Giossuè

Carlyle, Thomas

Carnap, Rudolph

Carroll, Lewis

Carver, Raymond

Castiglione, Count Baldassare

Cather, Willa

Catullus

Cavafy, Constantine P.

Cellini, Benvenuto

Cervantes, Miguel de

Cesaire, Aimé

Chandler, Raymond

Chateaubriand, Viscount François-René de

Chatterje, Bankim Chandra

Chatterton, Thomas

Chaucer, Geoffrey

Chayefsky, Paddy

Cheever, John William

Chekhov, Anton

Chestnutt, Charles

Chesterton, Gilbert

Chopin, Kate

Chrétien de Troyes

Christie, Agatha

Churchill, Caryl

Cicero

Clarke, Sir Arthur C.

Clausewitz, Carl von

Clavell, James

Cocteau, Jean

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Colette

Collins, Wilkie

Comenius, John Amos

Commager, Henry Steele

Confucius

Congreve, Sir William

Connor, Ralph

Conrad, Joseph

Cook, James

Cooper, James Fenimore

Corneille, Pierre

Costain, Thomas B.

Coward, Noël

Cowper, William

Crane, Stephen

Creasy, Sir Edward Sheperd

Croce, Benedetto

Cummings, Estlin

D

Dalton, John

Dana, Richard Henry

D’Annunzio, Prince Gabriele

Dante

Darwin, Charles

Daudet, Alphonse

Davies, Robertson

Defoe, Daniel

Dekker, Thomas

Demetrius of Phaleron

Demosthenes

Descartes, René

Dewey, John

Dick, Phillip Kindred

Dickens, Charles

Dickinson, Emily

Diderot, Denis

Didion, Joan

Dillard, Annie

Dinesen, Isak

Dio, Casius

Dio Chrysostom

Diogenes of Laerte

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Doctorow, E. L.

Donne, John

Dos Passos, John

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

Dreiser, Theodore

Dryden, John

Du Bois, W. E. B.

Dumas Jr., Alexandre

Dumas Sr., Alexandre

du Morrier, Dame Daphne

du Morrier, George

Durant, Will

Durrell, Lawrence

E

Edel, Leon

Edwards, Jonathan

Eichendorff, Baron Joseph Freihers von

Einstein, Albert

Elliot, George

Elliot, Sir J. H.

Elliot, T. S.

Ellis, Havelock

Ellison, Ralph

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Engels, Friedrich

Epictetus

Epicurus

Erasmus, Desiderius

Eschenbach, Wolfram von

Euclid of Alexandria

Eunopius

Euripides

Eusebius Pamphili

F

Faraday, Michael

Farrell, James T.

Faulkner, William

Ferdowsi

Fielding, Henry

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

Flaubert, Gustave

Fletcher, John

Forester, C.S.

Forster, E. M.

Foucault, Michel

France, Anatole

Francis of Assisi

Franklin, Benjamin

Franklin, Miles

Frazer, Sir James George

Freud, Sigmund

Frost, Robert

Fuentes, Carlos

G

Galen

Galileo

Galsworthy, John

García Lorca, Federico

García Márquez, Gabriel

Gardner, John

Gaskell, Elizabeth

Gautier, Theophile

Genet, Jean

George, Henry

Gibbon, Edward

Gide, André

Ginsberg, Allen

Giraudoux, Jean

God

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von

Gogol, Nikolai

Golding William

Goldoni, Carlo

Goldsmith, Oliver

Goodis, David

Gordimer, Nadine

Gorky, Maxim

Grass, Günter

Graves, Robert

Gray, Thomas

Grillparzer, Franz

Grimm, Jakob

Grimm, Wilhelm

Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoffel von

Grotius

Guare, John

Guzman, Martin Luis

H

Hafez

Haggard, Sir H. Rider

Hamilton, Alexander

Hamilton, Edith

Hammett, Dasheil

Hamsun, Knut

Hardy, Thomas

Hare, David

Harte, Bret

Harvey, William

Hasek, Jaroslav

Hauptmann, Gerhart Johann Robert

Hausman, A. E.

Hawkes, John

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

Hazlitt, William Carew

Hebbel,