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Read Me What to read, 1751-1800

< 1701-1750 | 1801-1825 >

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Later 18th Century

If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited. --Arthur Schopenhauer

Thomas Babbington MACAULAY (1800-1859) Etext: The Online Books Page | Modern History Sourcebook | Opposing Copyright Extension Reference: The Victorian Web I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything. --William Lamb
The History of England (1849-61) [I]ts author never tired of drawing comparisons between the backwardness of earlier times and the progressiveness of his own. Whig orthodoxy--Whig complacency, too--became the measure of all political virtue, became, indeed, the measure of virtue itself. --Hilton Kramer, The New Criterion, March, 2001, p. 57
Poems (1911)

William Holmes McGUFFEY (1800-1873) Etext: The Online Books Page
Eclectic Readers (1836-37)

Alexander Sergeyevich PUSHKIN (1799-1837) Etext: The Online Books Page | Poem Hunter
Boris Godunov (1825)
Peter the Great's Negro (1828)
Scene from Faust ((1828) Etext: The New Criterion (April 2010, Alan Shaw trans.)
One star: "The Station Master" from Tales of Belkin (1831)
One star: Eugene Onegin (1833)
The eight 'chapters', or more properly 'canti', of the verse novel each contain some fifty fourteen-line stanzas, ranging from the expression of Pushkin's own poetic theories, parody, and polemics, on the one hand, to the most exquisite songs... --Philip Ward
Queen of Spades (1834)
The Captain's Daughter (1836)
Dubrovsky (1841)
Collected Poetry (1984)

James HOGG (1799-1845) Etext: The Online Books Page
Kilmeny(The Queen's Wake 1813)
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)

Thomas HOOD (1799-1845) Etext: The Online Books Page
Poems (1847)

Honore de BALZAC (1799-1850) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: The Wild Ass's Skin (La Peau de Chagrin 1831)
One star: Louis Lambert (1832)
an autobiographical novel of a boy prodigy... --Philip Ward
Three stars: Eugenie Grandet (1833)
tracing the rise of a small vine-grower to a position of wealth and power... --Philip Ward
Three stars: Le Pere Goriot (1835)
showing 'civilized' Paris as an urban 'jungle'... --Philip Ward
One star: The Girl with the Golden Eyes (Fille aux yeux d’or 1835)
Seraphita (1835)
...Swedenborgian romance... --Philip Ward
Cesar Birotteau (1838)
One star: Ursule Mirouet (1841)
Two stars: La Cousine Bette (1846)
One star: A Harlot High and Low (Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes 1847)
Cousin Pons (1847)

Giacomo LEOPARDI (1798-1837) Etext: Project Gutenberg
One star: Canti (1820-1837)
Essays and Dialogues (translated by Charles Edwards 1882)
The Moral Essays (translated by Patrich Creagh 1983)

Adam Bernard MICKIEWICZ (1798-1855) Etext: The Online Books Page
Pan Tadeusz (1834)

Auguste COMTE (Isadore Auguste Marie Francois Comte 1798-1857) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post
Two stars: A Course of Positive Philosophy (1830-42) According to his system, the laws established by science reveal a cosmic order, a permanent order of human societies, and an order of historical development. --Raymond Aron, 'The Opium of the Intellectuals' (1957), p. 279 The procession is from the simple to the complex, with each field supplying basic elements for the science that follows it. Furthermore, Comte states, each branch of knowledge has passed through the three historical stages: the theological, the metaphysical or abstract, and the scientific or positive. --Robert B. Downs, Molders of the Modern Mind (1961), p. 225 [his] religious interests suffused positivism with a metaphysics strongly influenced by Catholic theology. --Carolina Armenteros, 'From Human Nature to Norman Humanity: Joseph de Maistre, Rousseau, and the Origins of Moral Statistics', Journal of the History of Ideas, January 2007, p. 108

In progress: (adding dates to works)

Adalbert STIFTER (1797-1868)
Indian Summer
Tales

Mary SHELLEY (1797-1851) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Criticism: post
One star: Frankenstein (1818)

Jeremias GOTTHELF (1797-1854)
The Black Spider

Heinrich HEINE (1797-1856) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post
Complete Poems

Alfred de VIGNY (1797-1863) Etext: The Online Books Page
Chatterton (1835)
Poems

Sir Charles LYELL (1797-1875) Etext: The Online Books Page which the future historian will recognize as having produced a revolution in natural science... --Charles Darwin, 'The Origin of Species' (1859), Ch. IX
One star: Principles of Geology (1830-33) full title: Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation His three-volume 'Principles of Geology' (1830-1833) and his 'Elements of Geology' (1838) still remain the foundation works of modern geology ... --Jane Jacobs, The New York Review of Books, July 19, 2001, p. 30
The Antiquity of Man (1863)

GHALIB (Mirza Asadullah beg Khan, (1796-1869) ...generally regarded as the greatest of Urdu poets. --A Guide to Oriental Classics (3rd Ed. 1989) p. 148
One star: Divan-i-Ghalib [Ghazals of Ghalib]

W. H. PRESCOTT (1796-1859) Etext: The Online Books Page He frequently [due to his impaired eyesight] kept about sixty pages in his memory for several days, and went over the whole mass five or six times, molding and remolding the sentences at each successive turn. --Allan Nevins, 'The Gateway to History' p. 376, quoted in 'The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well' by Tom Goldstein and Jethro K. Lieberman, p. 96
One star: History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843)
History of the Conquest of Peru (1847)

John KEATS (1795-1821) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post
I Stood Tiptoe Upon a Little Hill (1816)
One star: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer (1816)
Letter to Benjamin Bailey (Nov. 22, 1817)
Two stars: Endymion (1818)
Hyperion (1818)
Letter to John Taylor (Feb. 27, 1818)
Epistle to John Hamilton Reynolds (Mar. 25, 1818)
Letter to John H. Reynolds (May 3, 1818)
Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (c. Oct. 25, 1818)
Two stars: The Eve of St. Agnes (1819)
One star: Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819)
One star: Ode to a Nightingale (1819)
Ode to Psyche (1819)
La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819)
Ode on Melancholy (1819)
To Autumn (1819)
Lamia (1819)
Fancy (1820)
Lines on the Mermaid Tavern (1820)

George DARLEY (1795-1846)
Nepenthe (1835)
Poems

Thomas CARLYLE (1795-1881) Etext: The Online Books Page | Letters Criticism: Brownson
One star: Sartor Resartus (1833-34)
One star: History of the French Revolution (1837)
One star: On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841) This historian-essayist held the theory that the history of mankind consisted in the biographies of its great men and that there was such a cult as hero worhip. To an author with such a preconceived theory the temptation to strain facts to illustrate it is well-nigh irrestistible. --Philip K. Hitti, 'Islam and the West' (1962) pp. 61-62
Past and Present (1843) But in an age when religious belief and the social order were increasingly under assault, Carlyle's 'gospel of earnestness,' as it was called, was a revelation. --Rochelle Gursein, 'The Case of Thomas Carlyle', The American Scholar, Summer 2001, p. 81
One star: Frederick the Great (1858-65)

John Gibson LOCKHART (1794-1854) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Life of Robert Burns (1828)
Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (1836-38)

George GROTE (1794-1871)
The History of Greece (1846-1856)

William Cullen BRYANT (1794-1878) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: Robert of Lincoln
One star: To a Waterfowl

Nicolas LOBACHEVSKI (1793-1856) Reference: Non-Euclidean
Geometrical Researches on the Theory of Parallels (1840)

John CLARE ( 1793-1864) Etext: The Online Books Page
Poems

Percy Bysshe SHELLEY (1792-1822) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Kirsch [A] man infinitely too weak for that solitary scaling of the Alps which he undertook in spite of all the world. --Thomas Carlyle
For the beauty of the poems. --John Williams Collins III
One star: Queen Mab (1813)
One star: The Revolt of Islam (1818)
One star: Ozymandias (1818)
One star: Peter Bell the Third (1819)
One star: Prometheus Unbound (1820)
One star: To a Skylark (1820)
Ode to the West Wind (1820)
One star: Adonais (1821)
One star: Hellas (1821)
One star: To ---- (Posthumous Poems 1824) 'One Word is Too Often Profaned...'
One star: A Defence of Poetry [1821] (1840)

Johann Peter ECKERMANN (1792-1854)
Conversations with Goethe (1836)

Sir John HERSCHEL (1792-1871) Etext: The Online Books Page
Outlines of Astronomy (1849)

Sergey AKSAKOV (1791-1859) Reference: ArtNet
A Family Chronicle (1856)

Giuseppe Gioacchino BELLI (1791-1863)
One star: The Roman Sonnets (1886-1889)

Michael FARADAY (1791-1867) Etext: The Online Books Page His discoveries laid the foundation for the electric motor and the electrical generator, and thus for electrification in general. --The Economist, August 3rd 2002, p. 70
One star: Experimental Researches in Electricity (1839-55)
The Chemical History of a Candle (1860-61)
Observations on Mental Education

Franz GRILLPARZER (1791-1872) Etext: Infomotions
Medea (1820)
the last play in Grillparzer's 'Golden Fleece' trilogy: it is less about the daughter of the King of Colchis than about the fleece itself, which symbolizes guilt, victory, and revenge, ambition and wilfulness. --Philip Ward

Alphonse de LAMARTINE (1790-1869)
Meditations

1789: A Requiem

James Fenimore COOPER (1789-1851) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Bibliography at Wikipedia | Biography by Phillips Criticism: Udo Nattermann essay
The Deerslayer (1841)
A romantic and tragic study of manly character. --Hugh Heclo

Lord BYRON (George Gordon, 1788-1824) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: see Moore | The Life and Work of Lord Byron Criticism: post Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects he is a child. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One star: Inscription on the Monument of a New Foundland Dog (1808)
One star: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812)
One star: The Destruction of Sennacherib (1815)
One star: She Walks in Beauty (1815)
One star: The Prisoner of Chillon (1816)
One star: Beppo (1816)
One star: The Dream (1816)
One star: Manfred (1817)
Two stars: Don Juan (1819-24) It is the greatest comic epic in English, greater even than 'Tristram Shandy', the only other work remotely like it. --Paul Dean, The New Criterion, June 2003, p. 85
One star: Sardanapalus (1821)
One star: Stanzas Written on the Road between Florence and Pisa (1821)

Joseph, Freiherr von EICHENDORFF (1788-1857)
Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing (1826)

Arthur SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Walden It is hard to take Schopenhauer at his ascetic word when we know what splendid dinners he had put on, day after day, at the Hotel Schwan in Frankfort. --Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (1966) p. 17
One star: The World as Will and Idea (1819)
Parega und Paralipomena (1851)
On the Fourfold Root of the Principal of Sufficient Reason (1864)
Essays

One star: The Constitution of the United States of America (1787) Reference: The Constitutional Sources Project | Interpreting Our Written Constititution | The Founders' Constitution | SCOTUSblog | The Founders' Constitution | Liberty Criticism: Novak | Kaminski | Hertzberg | Arkes | Smith | Smith | Arkes | Uhlmann | Baldacchino | Ahern | Smith | Hoebeke | Uhlmann | Wagner | Craycraft | Mansfield | Adler | Intercollegiate Review | Brownson | see The Federalist at Alexander HAMILTON and James MADISON Humor: Onion | Onion The Articles of Confederation established a league of thirteen sovereign states, deriving its power from the states. The Constitution, however, established a new sovereign government, deriving its power directly from the people. ----Peter Wolff, Philosophy of Law and Jurisprudence (1961), p. 194

Three stars: The Federalist (1787-1788) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Liberty Library Criticism: post full title 'The Federalist: A Collection of Essays Written in Favor of the New Constitution' They were articles written for several New York newspapers, in order to urge the people of the state of New York to ratify the Constitution. --Peter Wolff, A General Introduction to the Great Books and to a Liberal Education (1959), p. 161
By "PUBLIUS" (Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison)

F. P. G. GUIZOT (1787-1874) Etext: The Online Books Page
General History of Civilization in Europe (1837)
...it showed me that history can be a form of philosophy and literature. --Richard Pipes
History of Civilization in France (1845)

Thomas Love PEACOCK (1785-1866) Etext: The Online Books Page
Nightmare Abbey
Gryll Grange

Alessandro MANZONI (1785-1873) Etext: The Online Books Page In Manzoni's house in Milan, in the room where he died in 1873, his rosary is pinned to the pillow of his deathbed. --Ralph McInerney, Crisis, October 2001, p. 64
One star: The Betrothed: a Tale of XVII Century Milan (I Promessi Sposi 1840-42)
On the Historical Novel

Thomas DE QUINCEY (1785-1859) Criticism: Ward Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821)
Rambling perceptive reminiscences: the Opium Eater is a master of digression and sly innuendo. --Raphael and McLeish

Jacob Ludwig Carl GRIMM (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Carl GRIMM (1786-1859) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: Fairy Tales (Kinder- und Hausmarchen 1812-1815) Criticism: Gaiman | Zaleski

Leigh HUNT (1784-1859) Criticism: Glover
Abou Ben Adhem (The Book of Gems 1838)
Autobiography (1850)

STENDHAL (Henri Beyle, 1783-1842) Etext: The Online Books Page
Three stars: The Red and the Black (Le Rouge et le Noir 1830) Criticism: Rexroth Today, poor people have innumerable career options: personal training, consulting, cabaret. If Stendhal were writing today, what color would he use to symbolize a career as a private equity fund manager? --Joe Queenan, There Will Be a Quiz, New York Times, April 6, 2008 --
Julien's course, from the moment we meet him, is determined by ideas. ... He is programmed, like a just-invented computer, by an idea of duty to himself. --Mary McCarthy
Two stars: The Charterhouse of Parma (La Chartreuse de Parma 1839) Criticism: Greenberg 'The Charterhouse of Parma' was dashed off by Stendhal in fifty-two days, at the end of 1838; and the circumstances of its composition (or should I say performance?) show: in its penchant for summary, in its likeness to a single whoosh of sustained exhalation, in its tour-de-force bravura quality, but also in its repetitions and hasty summing-up. --Phillip Lopate, 'The Worldly Stendhal', The American Scholar, Winter 2001, p. 140
One star: On Love (1928)

Washington IRVING (1783-1859) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Criticism: post
The Sketch Book by Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-1820)

John C. CALHOUN (1782-1850) Etext: The Online Books Page | Team Nesbitt | Project Gutenberg Calhoun, however, emphatically denies that man is either a simple prepolitical solitary or a political being. He declares instead that man is a social being, and his sociality takes precedence over political life. --Brendan Dunn, Review of Politics, Fall 2001
Disquisition on Government Calhoun's sophisticated theory of the 'concurrent majority' as the American republic's alternative to both despotism and anarchy holds much that might appeal, if they understood it, to both liberal and conservative parties today. --First Things, December 2001, p. 66
his basic principle itself: that every major interest in the country, whether regional, economic, or religious, is to possess a veto power on political decisions directly affecting it, the principle that Calhoun called, rather obscurely, 'the rule of the concurrent majority', has become the organizing principle of American politics. --Peter F. Drucker
Speech on the Reception of Abolitionist Petitions (1837)

The Articles of Confederation (1781) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Liberty Library

Charles MATURIN (1780-1824)
Melmoth the Wanderer

Karl von CLAUSEWITZ (1780-1831) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: On War (1832-34) Criticism: Willis G. Regier essay | Janeen Klinger essay | Bruce Fleming essay | Victor M. Rosello essay | John E. Shephard, Jr. essay | Eric Alterman essay

John GALT (1779-1839) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Entail

Thomas MOORE (1779-1852) Etext: The Online Books Page [O]ver-intellectual modern-day critics should take a lesson from his capacity to write intelligently about emotion. --The Economist, January 27th 2001, p. 85
The Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (1830)
The Light of Other Days
Pro Patria Mori
The Meeting of the Waters
The Last Rose of Summer
The Harp that Once Through Tara's Halls
A Canadian Boat-Song
The Journey Onwards
The Young May Moon
Echo
At the Mid Hour of Night

Ugo FOSCOLO (1778-1827)
On Sepulchres
Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis
Odes
The Graces

Sir Humphry DAVY (1778-1829)
Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812)

William HAZLITT (1778-1830) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Bromwich | Epstein
Lectures on the English Poets (1818)

Heinrich von KLEIST (1777-1811)
Erzanlungen (1810-1811)
Amphitryon
The broken jug
One star: Penthesilea (1808)
a clash between the heroine as wholly feminine and Achilles the hero as wholly masculine. --Philip Ward
Prince Frederick of Homburg
The tragedy of Robert Guiscard, Duke of the Normans
Stories

Thomas CAMPBELL (1777-1844)
The Pleasures of Hope (1799)
Poems

Henry HALLAM (1777-1859) Etext: The Online Books Page
Europe in the Middle Ages (1818)
Introduction to the Literature of Europe (1837-39)

One star: The Declaration of Independence (1776) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Criticism: post The Declaration of Independence is largely the work of Thomas Jefferson... --Peter Wolff, A General Introduction to the Great Books and to a Liberal Education (1959), p. 161 The fundamental doctrine of the right of revolution, or at least of secession from a tyrranical overlord, is based on Jefferson's (correct) reading of Locke's 'Essay on Civil Government'. The doctrine, in a nutshell, holds that a people who are now tyrranized by a government that may have once been legitimate have every right to rebel, or at least secede, in order to protect themselves. --Charles Van Doren, The Joy of Reading (1985) p. 247 the first public diplomacy document of the United States. Everything done in U.S. public diplomacy is, or should be, an elaboration of this pronouncement. --Robert B. Reilly, Winning the War of Ideas, Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2007, p. 35

E. T. A. HOFFMANN (1776-1822) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Devil's Elixir
Tales

Jane AUSTEN (1775-1817) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: The Republic of Pemberly Criticism: post
Three stars: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
It is the most perfectly written book in the English language that I know and Elizabeth Bennet the most perfect woman against whom all others pale. --Colin McArdle
Mansfield Park (1814)
Two stars: Emma (1816)
One star: Persuasion (1817)

Charles LAMB (1775-1834) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: Essays of Elia (1823)
The Last Essays of Elia (1833)

Walter Savage LANDOR (1775-1864) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: Imaginary Conversations (1824-29)
Poems

Robert SOUTHEY (1774-1843) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Bromwich
The Life of Nelson (1813)

NOVALIS (Friedrich von Hardenburg, 1772-1801) Etext: The Online Books Page
Hymns to the Night
Aphorisms

David RICARDO (1772-1823) Etext: The Online Books Page | The Library of Economics and Liberty Study: Reference: Criticism: post
The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817)

Friedrich SCHLEGEL (1772-1829) Etext: The Online Books Page
Criticism
Aphorisms

Samuel Taylor COLERIDGE (1772-1834) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: The Coleridge Archive Criticism: Rexroth | Everett
Coleridge the poet, critic, philosopher and theologian taught me that words are 'living powers' and that our duty is 'self-superintendence'--the attaining of distinctness of consciousness. --Richard R. Niebuhr
Two stars: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798)
One star: Writings on Shakespeare (1811-1812)
One star: Christabel (1816)
Two stars: Kubla Khan (1816)
He had set down a fragment of fewer than three hundred lines when he was interrupted by 'a person from Porlock' and his train of thought was never reconstructed. --Philip Ward
One star: Biographia Literaria (1817)
probably the best criticism of a friend and collaborator by his friend: Coleridge on Wordsworth. Ambitious philosophical criticism shows characteristic depth and range of Coleridge's mind. --Raphael and McLeish
One star: Aids to Reflection (1825)
One star: Table Talk and Omniana (1835)

Sir Walter SCOTT (1771-1832) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: post Literary fashion is a mysterious thing. Why is it that Sir Walter Scott, for example, whom generations of readers found absolutely spellbinding, is unread and, for many of us, unreadable today? --Roger Kimball, The New Criterion, December 2000, p. 4
The Lady of the Lake (1810)
One star: Waverly; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since (1814)
Old Mortality (1816)
Ivanhoe (1820)
One star: Heart of Midlothian (1818)
Redgauntlet (1824)
Poems

Dorothy WORDSWORTH (1771-1855) Criticism: post
The Grasmere Journal (1897)

Robert OWEN (1771-1858) Etext: The Online Books Page A manufacturer and practical reformer, he was not content to conceive--or adopt--the idea of small self-sufficing communities, producing and consuming their means of livelihood according to communist principles in the word's boldest acceptance. He actually went about realizing it. --Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (3rd ed. 1950) Ch. XXIV pp. 306-307
A New of Society, or, Essays on the Formation of the Human Character (1813-14)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HEGEL (1770-1831) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Gabriel R. Ricci essay | Roger Kimball review | post Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. --Karl Mark, 'The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte' (1852) what makes America unique, especially in contrast to Europe, is its resistance to the philosophy of Hegel with its concept of a unifying world spirit. --Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Blind Faiths, review of 'The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islams' Threat to the Enlightenment', by Lee Harris, The New York Times Book Review, January 6, 2007, p. 15
The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) No one could ever inveigle Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Into offering the slightest apology for his 'Phenomenology.' --W. H. Auden
An attempt to put everything together before anything was clear, revolutionary and romantic, but also a classical integration. --Duncan Kennedy
The Science of Logic (1812-1816) This is Spinosism in its most superficial form. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Collected Works 12, Marginalia II, 993
One star: The Philosophy of Right (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 1821) If there were only subjective freedom, then state and freedom would be opposed, since the state limits the extent to which an individual can do as he pleases. But since there is objective freedom, the freedom that comes from doing one's duty, the state serves freedom. A subject's duties and rights are determined for him by the state. Hence, in the state, and only in the state, can man be free. --Peter Wolff, The Development of Political Theory and Government (1959), p. 202 ...it is one of his basic philosophical assumptions that 'the real is the ideal'--that thought is the most basic and concrete thing there is in the world. Attention to the manifold materials of experience contributes nothing but confusion when we are looking for principles. It is thought alone which can get at the essence of things. ----Peter Wolff, Philosophy of Law and Jurisprudence (1961), p. 208 Hegel identifies the ethical with the universal and concrete--both at once. He acknowledges the partial validity of the sense of duty and the important factor of individual conscience in moral matters, but, unlike Kant, he refuses to accept what he calls mere 'morality' as the central aspect of ethics. For Hegel, ethics in its perfection is social, not individual. --Seymour Cain, Ethics: The Study of Moral Values (1962), p. 242 Whether or not we accept the dialectical method and all that is implied in it, Hegel's distinction between the three spheres of political life, family, civil society, and state, and his account of the rights and duties which arise within each one, carries great conviction. --Roger Scruton, Conservative Texts, p. 130
Hegel contrasts the idea of a civil society, where people cooperate to further their interests, with the idea of a political community as an ethical life that enlarges the self-knowledge of the participants. --Michael J. Sandel
One star: The Philosophy of History (1830-31) To his mind, America was deficient because it lacked a state church, a European-style ministry of culture, and receptivity to the rationalized Protestantism that he sought to advance. --Thomas Albert Howard, 'America in the European Mind', First Things, November 2006, p. 13
The Philosophy of Religion (1832)
Philosophy of Fine Art (1886)
Selections (1929) or the Philosophy of Hegel: Hegel's Basic Writings (1965)

Friedrich HOLDERLIN (1770-1843) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Hofmann
One star: Poems and Fragments

William WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post Wordsworth, like Freud,...knew that the child's way of apprehension was but a stage which, in the course of nature, would give way to another. --Lionel Trilling
Expostulation and Reply (in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems 1798)
The Tables Turned (in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems 1798)
We Are Seven (in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems 1798)
Tintern Abbey (in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems 1798)
Influence of Natural Objects (1799)
Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal (in Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems 1800)
I Traveled Among Unknown Men (in Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems 1800)
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways (in Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems 1800)
To the Small Celandine (1802)
Westminster Bridge (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
London 1802 (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
The World Is Too Much With Us (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
The Solitary Reaper (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
Ode to Duty (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollection of Early Childhood (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
To Sleep (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
Personal Talk (in Poems, in Two Volumes 1807)
Three stars: The Excursion (1814)
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822)
Scorn Not the Sonnet (1827)
The Borderers (1842)
The Simplon Pass (1845)
One star: The Prelude (1850)

Georges CUVIER (1769-1832) Etext: The Online Books Page Based on his research, he originated the idea of different geological epochs in the past. Before Cuvier, the past was just the same as the present, and all the species the same. --Edward J. Larson, Before Darwin, 'The Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy' Lecture 1, The Teaching Company
The Surface of the Globe (1825)

Alexander von HUMBOLDT (Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt 1769-1859) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Criticism: post
One star: Cosmos (1845-47)

Encyclopaedia Britannica Etext: 15th Edition | Rexroth | 11th Edition Reference: Britannica Blog | Wikipedia
(1st Ed. 1768)
(11th Ed. 1910-11) When T. S. Eliot wrote 'Soul curled upon the window seat reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica' he was certainly thinking of the eleventh edition. --Kenneth Clark
The infinite riches of the world, presented with elegance, confidence, and economy. --Mark Helprin
(15th Ed. 1975)

Jean-Baptiste-Joseph FOURIER (1768-1830)
Analytical Theory of Heat (Theorie analytique de la chaleur 1822) wrote a set of equations that accurately described how heat behaves regardless of what it 'really' is, which, Fourier contended, was not a scientific question at all. --Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It, by Steven L. Goodman, The Teaching Company

Vicomte Francois-Rene de CHATEAUBRIAND (1768-1848)
One star: Memoirs from Beyond the Grave (1849-50)
Atala
Rene
The Genius of Christianity

Benjamin CONSTANT (1767-1830)
Adolphe
The Red Notebook

Maria EDGEWORTH (1767-1849) Etext: The Online Books Page
Castle Rackrent

Madame de STAEL nee Germaine Necker (1766-1817) Criticism: Lewis
Memoirs (c. 1755)

Thomas Robert MALTHUS (1766-1834) Etext: The Online Books Page Study: Roberts Criticism: post
Two stars: An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) Malthus's 'Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of Society', originally published in 1798, asserts that the human race naturally breeds too fast for its food supply. The consequence--anounced with the sangfroid common then among philosophical men of the upper class--is that the poor are miserable and will always remain so. --D. T. Max, 'Two Cheers for Darwin', The American Scholar, Spring 2003, p. 70 Malthus saw the human population experiencing what appeared to be exponential growth, and he pointed out correctly that exponential growth could not be sustained forever. Malthus predicted that there would soon be rising mortality rates as an inevitable consequence of overpopulation. --Stephen Nowicki, The Science of Life: Lecture 71, Human Population Growth, The Teaching Company
Malthus concluded that, if human beings were to enjoy the greatest possible happiness, they should not assume family obligations unless they could afford them. Those without adequate means to support a family should remain celibate. --Robert B. Downs

John DALTON (1766-1844)
One star: A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808-27)

Johann Paul Friedrich RICHTER "Jean Paul" (1763-1825)
Autobiography (1825)

Johann Gottlieb FICHTE (1762-1814) Parenthetically, neither Marx nor Hegel ever used the 'thesis, antithesis, synthesis' formulation. They owe the phrase to Fichte. --Robert L. Heilbroner, 'Marxism: For and Against' (1980) p. 42 Gentlemen! Look at the washbasket! Let your thoughts be the washbasket! Have you thought the washbasket? Now then, gentlemen, let your thought be on *that* that thought the washbasket! --Penelope Fitzgerald, 'The Blue Flower', quoted in 'Between head & heart: Penelope Fitzgerald's Novels' by Tess Lewis, 'The New Criterion' March 2000 p. 35
The Vocation of Man (1800)
Address to the German Nation (1807-08)
It was Napolean's humiliation of the Germans, particularly the Prussians, which drove Fichte and the German intellectuals to call on the German masses to unite into a mighty nation which would dominate Europe. --Eric Hoffer

William COBBETT (1762-1835) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post
Rural Rides (1830)

Robert BURNS (1759-1796) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Burns Country | Lockhart
One star: Poems (1759-96)
One star: Songs

Mary WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759-1797) Etext: The Online Books Page | Online Library of Liberty Reference: Jump Criticism: Eilenberg
Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
The author based her crusade to win freedom and self-respect for women on the principle that they would thereby become more capable wives and mothers. --Robert B. Downs

Friedrich von SCHILLER (1759-1805) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Kimball He is one of the most conspicuous and most impressive figures among the host of theologically displaced persons who found a precarious refuge in the emergency camp of art. --Erich Heller
One star: Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien: ein dramatisches Gedicht (1787)
One star: Mary Stuart (Maria Stuart 1800) showing Elizabeth I's confrontation with the Catholic Mary Stuart (which never in historical truth took place). --Philip Ward, A Lifetime's Reading (1982) p. 40
Wilhelm Tell (1804)
The Robbers
The Death of Wallenstein
On the Naive and Sentimental in Literature
Simple and Sentimental Poetry

Noah WEBSTER (1758-1843) Etext: The Online Books Page
An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

William BLAKE (1757-1827) Etext: The Online Books Page | Blake Digital Text Project Reference: William Blake Archive Criticism: post What his genius required, and what it sadly lacked, was a framework of accepted and traditional ideas which would have prevented him from indulging in a philosophy of his own. --T. S. Eliot
One star: Poetical Sketches (1783)
One star: All Religions Are One (c. 1788)
Two stars: Songs of Innocence (1789)
One star: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793)
Two stars: Songs of Experience (1794)
One star: There Is No Natural Religion (1794-1995)
Auguries of Innocence (1803)
One star: Milton (1808)
One star: Annotations to Discourses by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1808)
One star: The Everlasting Gospel (1818)
Gnomic Verses
Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau
A Vision of the Last Judgment

William GODWIN (1756-1836) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post
An Inquiry Concering the Principles of Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793)

Alexander HAMILTON (c. 1755-1804) Criticism: post
The Continentalist (1781-1782)
Three stars: The Federalist (1787-1788, with John JAY, and James MADISON, as "Publius") Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Liberty Library Criticism: post full title 'The Federalist: A Collection of Essays Written in Favor of the New Constitution' They were articles written for several New York newspapers, in order to urge the people of the state of New York to ratify the Constitution. --Peter Wolff, A General Introduction to the Great Books and to a Liberal Education (1959), p. 161
Papers rationalizing and justifying the U.S. Constitution of 1787 (to influence debates over ratification), these constitute collectively a profound assessment of the nature, uses, needs for, dangers in, correctives to--and, by implication, ineradicable dilemmas of--human governance in secular societies legitimized by popular sovereignty. --Richard E. Neustadt
Report on Manufactures (1791)

George CRABBE (1754-1832) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: The Parish Register (1807)

Fanny BURNEY (1752-1840) Etext: The Online Books Page
Diary and Letters of Mme. D'Arblay (1842-46)
Evelina

James MADISON (1751-1826) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: James Madison Center Criticism: post
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (October 24, 1787)
Three stars: The Federalist (1787-1788, with Alexander HAMILTON, and John JAY, as "Publius") Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Liberty Library Criticism: post full title 'The Federalist: A Collection of Essays Written in Favor of the New Constitution' They were articles written for several New York newspapers, in order to urge the people of the state of New York to ratify the Constitution. --Peter Wolff, A General Introduction to the Great Books and to a Liberal Education (1959), p. 161
A brilliant subtle argument for a non-Aristotelian regime. --James Q. Wilson
Property (March 29, 1792) Papers 14:266-68

Richard Brinsley SHERIDAN (1751-1816) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Allen
One star: The Rivals (1775)
One star: The School for Scandal (1777)

< 1701-1750 | 1801-1825 >



Revised Revised July 4, 2010.

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