Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, volume 16


Read by LibriVox Volunteers

The Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, is a work of enormous proportions. Setting out with the simple goal of offering "American households a mass of good reading", the editors drew from literature of all times and all kinds what they considered the best pieces of human writing, and compiled an ambitious collection of 45 volumes (with a 46th being an index-guide). Besides the selection and translation of a huge number of poems, letters, short stories and sections of books, the collection offers, before each chapter, a short essay about the author or subject in question. In many cases, chapters contemplate not one author, but certain groups of works, organized by nationality, subject or period; there is, thus, a chapter on Accadian-Babylonian literature, one on the Holy Grail, and one on Chansons, for example.

The result is a collection that holds the interest, for the variety of subjects and forms, but also as a means of first contact with such famous and important authors that many people have heard of, but never read, such as Abelard, Dante or Lord Byron. According to the editor Charles Dudley Warner, this collection "is not a library of reference only, but a library to be read."

This sixteenth volume contains chapters from "Aulus Gellius" to "The Greek Anthology". (18 hr 6 min)

Chapters

Selected excerpts from The Attic Nights by Aulus Gellius 21:42 Read by Owlivia
Selected excerpts from the Gesta Romanorum 28:24 Read by Brize C
Edward Gibbon by W. E. H. Lecky 25:17 Read by Brize C
Zenobia and Foundation of Constantinople by Edward Gibbon 38:30 Read by Brize C
Character of Contantine and Death of Julian by Edward Gibbon 20:33 Read by Brize C
The Fall of Rome and Silk by Edward Gibbon 21:37 Read by Chris Pyle
Mahometh's Death and Character and The Alexandrian Library by Edward Gibbon 23:11 Read by Brize C
The Final Ruin of Rome by Edward Gibbon 43:11 Read by Chris Pyle
Selected poems by William Schwenck Gilbert 24:22 Read by Brize C
Selected poems by Richard Watson Gilder 17:28 Read by Joel Graff
Selected poems by Giuseppe Giusti 9:01 Read by roselbex
Macaulay by William Ewart Gladstone 42:16 Read by roselbex
The Duty of Criticism in a Democracy by Edwin Lawrence Godkin 36:00 Read by roselbex
Goethe by Edward Dowden 40:05 Read by roselbex
Scenes from Faust by Goethe 45:31 Read by thorolfhammer
Excerpts from Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Goethe 49:41 Read by thorolfhammer
Selected poems by Goethe 24:15 Read by thorolfhammer
Maxims and Reflections and Nature by Goethe 5:41 Read by thorolfhammer
Nikolai Vasilievitch Gogol by Isabel F. Hapgood 21:11 Read by Brize C
Selected scenes by Gogol 36:47 Read by Brize C
Carlo Goldoni by William Cranston Lawton 16:14 Read by Rita Boutros
Selected excerpts by Carlo Goldoni 39:58 Read by Rita Boutros
Assar and Mirjam by Meïr Aaron Goldschmidt 23:58 Read by Rita Boutros
Oliver Goldsmith by Charles Mills Gayley 31:44 Read by roselbex
Selections from The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith 1:03:57 Read by roselbex
Selected poems by Oliver Goldsmith 19:18 Read by roselbex
Oblómof by Iván Aleksandrovitch Goncharóf 48:41 Read by Rita Boutros
Selected excerpts by the Gouncourt Brothers 46:00 Read by roselbex
Selected poems by Edmund Gosse 13:03 Read by roselbex
Heinrich Heine by Rudolf von Gottschall 23:23 Read by Availle
Petronella by John Gower 30:57 Read by Brize C
Ulysses S. Grant by Hamlin Garland 25:02 Read by Paula Messina
Excerpts from the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant 39:55 Read by roselbex
Selected excerpts by Henry Grattan 23:58 Read by roselbex
Selected poems by Thomas Gray 30:24 Read by Larry Wilson
The Greek Anthology by Talcott Williams 12:14 Read by Brize C
Selected epigrams from the Greek Anthology 23:30 Read by Brize C