CLASSICS National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped The Library of Congress Washington, D.C. 1994 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME Cassettes Braille Anthologies MIDDLE AGES Cassettes Braille RENAISSANCE THROUGH 1699 _William Shakespeare_ Plays: Cassettes Braille Poetry: Cassettes Braille _Other Authors_ Cassettes Braille 1700 TO 1900 _Prolific Authors_ Jane Austen Cassettes Braille Joseph Conrad Cassettes Braille James Fenimore Cooper Cassettes Braille Charles Dickens Cassettes Braille Fyodor Dostoyevsky Cassettes Braille Thomas Hardy Cassettes Braille Nathaniel Hawthorne Cassettes Braille Henrick Ibsen Cassettes Braille Henry James Cassettes Braille Herman Melville Cassettes Braille Sir Walter Scott Cassettes Braille George Bernard Shaw Cassettes Braille Robert Louis Stevenson Cassettes Braille Leo Tolstoy Cassettes Anthony Trollope The Chronicles of Barsetshire: Cassettes The Pallisers: Cassettes Other Novels: Cassettes Braille Ivan Turgenev Cassettes Braille Mark Twain Cassettes Braille _Other Authors_ Cassettes Braille _Poetry Anthologies_ Braille _Introduction_ _Classics_ is a bibliography of selected fiction, poetry, and drama written before 1900 in the network library collections provided by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Although most people have strong ideas about things they consider classic, defining a classic is not easy. The idea of the classic has traditionally been connected with works created during an earlier period of history. Ancient Greece was esteemed by the ancient Romans; the Roman Empire was the ideal for the Middle Ages; ancient Greece and Rome formed the model for the Renaissance. Through the centuries the amount of lapsed time required for a work to attain the status of classic has been steadily shrinking. By 1737 Alexander Pope had decided that 100 years was sufficient when he declared, "Who lasts a century can have no flaw." Today the word is applied to many recent products that have lasted beyond their expected lifespan, such as cars, clothing, soft drinks, rock music, and horse races. Although age does not necessarily make a book a classic, it does provide a useful test. Every age has its share of writers whose work, if it survives at all, is of interest only as an academic footnote to the major authors of the period. Books that still attract readers after hundreds of years demonstrate their strength. Frequently the attitude toward classics is a medicinal one: students have certain books forced on them because these books are good for them. Mark Twain defined a classic as "a book which people praise and don't read." This idea is being challenged by a recent trend in book sales. It has been reported that many people long out of school have been purchasing good editions of books they were assigned in school. Literary critic Walter Kendrick reports that people in the book industry attribute this phenomenon to readers who feel that they were too young when they first read these books. They want to reacquaint themselves with these works and get to ones they missed. It is not the purpose of this bibliography to define a classic but to make it easy to locate the fiction, poetry, and drama of earlier centuries. Works of classic authors are continually added to the collection, and this bibliography does not necessarily include the complete works of the authors represented. In the case of writers such as George Bernard Shaw and Jack London, who published before and after 1900, only those works published before 1900 are included. Cooperating libraries can help interested readers find other available books by the authors in this bibliography. The bibliography is divided into four chronological sections: Ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance through 1699, and 1700 to 1900. Generally each section lists books in alphabetical order by author; the two latter sections begin with the prolific authors of the periods. Books are not separated by genre because many anthologies mix fiction, poetry, and drama. The annotations indicate which forms are contained in a particular book. This bibliography is available in large-print, disc, and braille formats. The large-print edition contains approximately 380 titles available on cassette and in braille. The disc edition lists only cassettes; the braille edition lists only braille. To order books, contact your cooperating library. *** 6/1/95 (gft) ***