Page:The small library. A guide to the collection and care of books (IA smalllibraryguid00browiala).pdf/28

 seems to be the class which proves most permanently attractive to all kinds of children. There is an immense field from which selection can be made, but for the purpose of the kind of library now in view the following suggestions of titles are confined to works which have been adopted throughout the English-speaking if not the whole civilized world. Books by such writers as Ballantyne, Fenn, Henty, Mayne Reid, Kingston, and Verne are purposely excluded. They belong distinctly to the gift-book class of literature, which is the province of the rich uncle, besides being contained—generally very completely—in the easily accessible Public Libraries. Omitting these, and such hopelessly 'improving' and impossible books as Sandford and Merton, Swiss Family Robinson, The Fairchild Family, etc., we get various books which are as necessary to a well-ordered household as chairs:—


 * Æsop. Fables.
 * Andersen. Fairy Tales.
 * Arabian Nights.
 * Bunyan. Pilgrim's Progress.
 * Burnett. Little Lord Fauntleroy.
 * Carroll. Alice in Wonderland.
 * ——Through the Looking-glass.
 * Defoe. Robinson Crusoe.
 * Dickens. Christmas Books.
 * Grimm. Household Tales.
 * Hughes. Tom Brown's Schooldays.
 * Kipling. Jungle Books.
 * Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare.
 * Scott. Ivanhoe.
 * Stevenson. Treasure Island.
 * Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
 * Swift. Gulliver's Travels.