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According to the corporate blob that swallowed American literate culture august literary scholars at Barnes & Noble Publihing, the following is a collection that every library absolutely needs (that is the meaning of the word "essential," right?):
Of those 20, only 1 is a woman, and only 1 wrote anything after World War 2(Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, and H.G. Welles all wrote a few things after WW 1, however, earning my definition of "modern" writers -- but I don't know if those modern works made their way into the anthologies). If this list were really used as be the backbone of a basic literary understanding, that understanding would have severe scoliosis.
Of course, Barnes and Noble is a bookseller first, and its main purpose in publishing is to boost its profit margin; actual literary merit is of a secondary value. So the compilers trolled the waters of Public Domain for their catch.*
I'm under no such limitation. For the sake of a slightly more even gender balance, here are the male writers I would cut. My removing them from the list is in no way a dismissal of their individual talents. It's just that I'm giving myself the rule that the list has to stay at 20 writers, total. So I'd put them all on the Almost-Essential list. Definitely read these guys -- but you can get the books from the library:
And here are the women I would add (Also giving the list a small nudge into the modern era, as a bonus):
And, of course, as I was compiling this modest adaptation of this list (and double-checking on Wikipedia, to see if my memories of which writer was which were correct), I kept thinking of other women writers I could add, to provide balance in genre, style, era, and importance. But the five above would certainly be a good start in strengthening that backbone.
*Help! I'm suffering from Mixedmetaphorextenditis! Send a doctor!
Okay, doing this exercise has been like counting sheep. ... Sleepy at last, I toddle to bed.
- Jane Austen Seven Novels
- Lewis Carroll Complete Works
- Joseph Conrad Complete Short Stories
- James Fenimore Cooper Five Novels
- Daniel Defoe Five Novels
- Charles Dickens Five Novels
- Alexandre Dumas Three Novels
- Gustave Flaubert Five Novels
- E. M. Forster Four Novels
- Ernest Hemmingway Four Novels
- O. Henry The Fiction
- Jack London Six Novels
- Edgar Allen Poe Fiction and Poetry
- Robert Louis Stevenson Seven Novels
- Bram Stoker Five Novels
- Leo Tolstoy Three Novels
- Mark Twain Five Novels
- Jules Verne Seven Novels
- H. G. Welles Seven Novels
- Oscar Wilde Collected Works
Of those 20, only 1 is a woman, and only 1 wrote anything after World War 2(Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, and H.G. Welles all wrote a few things after WW 1, however, earning my definition of "modern" writers -- but I don't know if those modern works made their way into the anthologies). If this list were really used as be the backbone of a basic literary understanding, that understanding would have severe scoliosis.
Of course, Barnes and Noble is a bookseller first, and its main purpose in publishing is to boost its profit margin; actual literary merit is of a secondary value. So the compilers trolled the waters of Public Domain for their catch.*
I'm under no such limitation. For the sake of a slightly more even gender balance, here are the male writers I would cut. My removing them from the list is in no way a dismissal of their individual talents. It's just that I'm giving myself the rule that the list has to stay at 20 writers, total. So I'd put them all on the Almost-Essential list. Definitely read these guys -- but you can get the books from the library:
- James Fenimore Cooper
- Daniel Defoe
- Gustave Flaubert
- Bram Stoker
- Jules Verne
And here are the women I would add (Also giving the list a small nudge into the modern era, as a bonus):
- Louisa May Alcott (I'd include her Hospital Sketches along with Little Women and Little Men)
- Emily Dickenson (Because poetry should be part of a basic literary education, too. And her poetry was far ahead of its time.)
- George Sand (Just like her countryman and contemporary, Flaubert, she's famous for writing about women's psychology in a repressive society. Except, you know, she was a woman...)
- Edith Wharton (Important for her use of irony and social commentary.)
- Virginia Woolf (One of the founding writers of the Modernist movement in novels.)
And, of course, as I was compiling this modest adaptation of this list (and double-checking on Wikipedia, to see if my memories of which writer was which were correct), I kept thinking of other women writers I could add, to provide balance in genre, style, era, and importance. But the five above would certainly be a good start in strengthening that backbone.
*Help! I'm suffering from Mixedmetaphorextenditis! Send a doctor!
Okay, doing this exercise has been like counting sheep. ... Sleepy at last, I toddle to bed.
