Little Black Classics Box Set (Penguin Little Black Classics)

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And if you have any interest in selling the public domain in a way that brings value to the reader, you could do a lot worse than study how the people at Penguin do it. It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past who you have never met".

But because I had this very slim curated reading experience, I was able to dip in and it was so fun. Contemplating the books en masse is like being let loose in a sweet shop. Austerely desirable, but also playful in their way: some familiar authors have been given unusual titles – It Was Snowing Butterflies for a selection from Darwin’s Beagle voyage; Mrs Rosie and the Priest for a story from The Decameron – and others are discrete, self-contained, such as De Quincey’s On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts, or The Communist Manifesto. I do not know The Dhammapada; now I can get a taste of it. Ditto Pu Songling, Kenkō, Akutagawa and Shen Fu. Buying the lot doesn’t seem like a crazy extravagance. What happiness it is to sit in conversation with someone of like mind, warmed by candid discussion of the amusing and fleeting ways of the world……but such a friend is hard to find, and instead you do your best to fit in with whatever the other is saying, feeling deeply alone." This poem is very open ended; I always love this in a poem. This was my favourite in the edition, but that’s not to say that there aren’t any other good ones in here. There are a lot of fantastic verses. ‘Death’ was also quite good. I do love the Bronte sisters. I need to read more of their works. This was a great collection of poetry, one that I’m likely to revisit.

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It makes sense you see. I got the idea from the prestigious Dr. Silas Mitchell. He describing what he calls his "rest cure" for hysterical women, wrote, "I do not permit the patient to sit up or to sew or write or read. The only action allowed is that needed to clean the teeth." At the end of six weeks to two months of such treatment, he says the women would be good as new. So I’m going to try this on my wife. Can you not see the sheer intellect behind the idea? This will solve everything just you wait and see. I caught my wife writing in a journal. What an impetuous woman she is! Does she not understand that these restrictions are for her own safety? I do this because I must have a trophy wife. In public we must be seen as a successful couple with an air of respectability. She can’t be jotting down such nonsense and expressing her thoughts. I told her to stop. She doesn’t need the distraction. She needs to be well again, for my sake. So if you’re a publisher, that’s very cool. You’re giving two sets of value that end up benefitting you. You give someone the chance to sample the work and if they like it you can offer them the full thing.

That being said though, there have been some great things in this series. I completed my goal of increasing my literary awareness and finding a few authors I may never have encountered. All in all, there have been many ups and downs. So this review is a summary of my experience, highlighting the three I enjoyed the most. What strange folly, to beguile the tedious hours like this all day before my ink stone, jotting down at random the idle thoughts that cross my mind Because, I assure you, if you go through some of the classics looking for the little known gems on Gutenberg, it’s going to take you a long time to find something that’s actually pretty good. I’ve restricted my wife’s freedom incredibly. I direct her every action for her own safety. She eats what I tell her, when I tell her. And she has to stay in our bedroom all day. This will soon be over; she only has a temporary nervous depression. She babbles on to me about her problems at night. I don’t have time for them. I’m a man you see. So that means respectability and shutting down any sign of emotion. I told her to go to sleep, this will soon be over.But if you’ve been following publishing trends, you’ll know that a lot of people do publish public domain works and try to turn a profit on them. I feel like the author has made many true observations that will ring true in the heart of any bookworm. He understands because, by the sounds of things, he was one once too. I’m very glad I read this, and I do recommend it to those that wish to, as Kenko put it, commune with someone from the past.