One of the readings I assigned the students in American Literature 1800-1915 last term was Bret Harte's short story "Left out on Lone Star Mountain." The copy I used was in my Riverside Literature Series #238, Short Stories, selected and edited by Leonard B. Moulton. I decided to read through the rest of the stories, as I realized I was familiar ( Read more... )

          My 50th completed book of the year is another Riverside Literature Series number, 117-118, Stories from The Arabian Nights. No author or editor is listed, and my RLS catalogs don't name one, either. The "Introductory Note" credits a Dr. Jonathon Scott's translation (which I discover was from 1800) as the main source. Apparently this ( Read more... )

My latest Riverside Literature Series reading is #196, the play The Rivals, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The experience reminded me that I am woefully unfamiliar with the theater of the 1700s, though I've always meant to "get around" to reading it.  Since I have copies of She Stoops to Conquer and School for Scandal on my shelves, among ( Read more... )

    John Drinkwater's 1923 play Robert E. Lee is interesting as a historical curiosity, but I can't otherwise recommend it.  Drinkwater, an Englishman, made his reputation with a 1918 play Abraham Lincoln and so I guess this was an obvious follow-up subject.  He also wrote plays on Mary Stuart and Oliver Cromwell.
    The play can't be taken very ( Read more... )

    My next two titles are also from the Riverside Literature Series: #77, The Cotter's Saturday Night and other poems by Robert Burns; and #202, The Night Before Thanksgiving, A White Heron, and Selected Stories by Sarah Orne Jewett.
    Robert Burns should need no introduction. I'd read many of his poems before, but there were several in this ( Read more... )

     I've had long episodes of "having to kill time" recently, which has allowed some unexpected reading time. This includes two titles from the Riverside Literature Series: #224, The American Mind and American Idealism by Bliss Perry; and #245, At School in the Promised Land by Mary Antin.
      Bliss Perry was a famous American educator, and for ( Read more... )

    Pursuant to teaching American Literature in the Fall, I'm combing through my Riverside Literature Series collection for likely works to teach.  It's also my plan to begin officially cataloguing the series, since I've failed to turn up any evidence of anyone else having done it in an easily accessible way.
    Kate Douglas Wiggin, the author of ( Read more... )

From my collection of Riverside Literature Series schoolbooks, I just finished #194, which is Selections from Bracebridge Hall, by Washington Irving.  This allowed me to rediscover (as is often the case with the R.L.S. volumes) how much I enjoy Irving's writing, which is modeled on Addison and Steele, other favorites of mine ( Read more... )

            When I looked at the table of contents for Riverside Literature Series #190, Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States, Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration, and Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg, I decided that the editor, William Trufant Foster (listed as "formerly Professor of English and Argumentation at Bowdoin ( Read more... )

            I finished two books yesterday.  (My, how the titles tick off once I finish with student manuscripts!)  The first was another Riverside Literature Series selection (#187-188), Thomas Henry Huxley's Autobiography and Selected Essays.  Both parts of the title are a bit misleading.  The "Essays" are almost entirely speeches, later ( Read more... )