THE MASS OF THE WORLD’S LITERATURE.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 11 September 1901, Page 4

THE MASS OF THE WORLD’S LITERATURE.

It is becoming increasingly apparent to the most casual observer that no single reader can hope to cope with the whole mass of, the world’s literature, to read all that' has been written from the time when man impressed his cuneiform characters on Assyrian titles till the day of the latest society novels. Now_, as never before in the world’s history, it is true what Solomon said, that of the making of many books there is no end, and Edison’s attempted feat of reading through a public library from beginning to end becomes more and more impossible. The man who refuses to confess that he is not fully acquainted with every masterpiece of literature, in addition to a host of minor writings, is known to bo a humbug, and so great is the modern hurry, that, tell it not in Gath, even Shakespeare is known to many only by the titles of his plays. The only way out of this difficulty is through the medium of anthologies, the largest and best of which lies before us at the present time. “ The Library of Famous Literature ” differs in every way from the volumes of Extracts in which our grand-parents pretend to delight, and from the best hundred or half hundred books which the present generation have learned to mistrust. It covers the whole field of the world’s literature, ancient mediaeval, and modern, of all peoples and of all times, represented by extracts chosen with scholarly discrimination and a fine sense of Literary proportion, and contained in twenty handsome royal-octavo volumes.

No lover of good books can afford to miss the opportunity to secure “The Library of Famous Literature ” offered for the moment on such generous terms. The approaching end of the sale in New Zealand is announced and we learn that when the offer has been withdrawn it can never be renewed.