I've decided to postpone the next Fortnightly Book until next weekend, since this is the beginning of what looks like might be a fairly busy summer term. But in one of the books that I was considering, George du Maurier's Peter Ibbetson, I found tucked away a book ballot dated 15 January 1964. The Heritage Club issued one book a month, with each series beginning in June. The series that began in 1964, for instance, was the 29th. To do that, of course, the Directors had to select twelve books several months beforehand; and to guarantee that the books were popular choices, they would send out a set of ballots to some of their subscribed members. In the first ballot, members would nominate works; on the basis of those nominations, the Directors would create a second ballot (eliminating works still in copyright or repeats and adding their own), and send those out to a different set of members. What was tucked away in Peter Ibbetson was the second ballot, sent to my grandfather and never filled out. There are 48 works on the list. I include them below. The Heritage Press works I have are bolded.
ALMAYER'S FOLLY by Joseph Conrad
THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
THE ANABASIS; THE MARCH OF THE TEN THOUSAND by Xenophon
THE POLITICS AND THE POETICS by Aristotle
BHAGAVAD GITA: THE SONG CELESTIAL by Sir Edwin Arnold
BILLY BUDD AND OTHER STORIES by Herman Melville
THE BOOK OF PROVERBS
CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA and THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE by George Bernard Shaw
DAVID COPPERFIELD by Charles Dickens
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA by Alexis de Tocqueville
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY by Ambrose Bierce
THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS
DR. FAUSTUS by Christopher Marlowe
DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes
DROLL STORIES by Honoré de Balzac
EMMA by Jane Austen
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
FLAUBERT: THREE TALES
THE FORSYTE SAGA: THE MAN OF PROPERTY by John Galsworthy
THE GILGAMESH EPIC OF BABYLONIA
THE GLORIOUS ADVENTURES OF TYL UGENSPIEL by Charles de Coster
GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
THE HAPPY PRINCE AND OTHER TALES by Oscar Wilde
HARD TIMES by Charles Dickens
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST by Thomas à Kempis
THE JUNGLE by Upton Sinclair
THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS by Suetonius
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK by Alexandre Dumas
THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE by Robert Louis Stevenson
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE by Thomas Hardy
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS by George Eliot
THE PATHFINDERS by James Fenimore Cooper
THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD by John M. Synge
PLAYS OF HENRIK IBSEN
THE POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS
THE POEMS OF JOHN KEATS
POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK by Benjamin Franklin
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER by Mark Twain
THE PRISONER OF ZENDA by Anthony Hope
PROMETHEUS BOUND by Aeschylus and PROMETHEUS UNBOUND by Shelley
SHORT STORIES by O. Henry
SONS AND LOVERS by D. H. Lawrence
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA by Friedrich Nietzsche
VOLPONE, OR THE FOX by Ben Jonson
WALDEN, OR LIFE IN THE WOODS by Henry David Thoreau
WILHELM MEISTER'S APPRENTICESHIP by Goethe
THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins
All Heritage Press books on my shelf will eventually be Fortnightly Books; so far about one in every four has been Heritage Press. Of the bolded ones above, I have already done the Stevenson (Introduction, Review), the Shaw (Introduction, Review), and the Goethe (Introduction, Review).
In the spirit of ballots, I thought I would ask if anyone has a preference among the above for the next Fortnightly Book? That is out of the bolded above, minus the three already done but adding Peter Ibbetson, are there any preferences? If there's a clear favorite, I'll do that one next. If there's a spread, I'll pick one from the recommendations, and it might be possible to get a couple of others in during the next few months. I intend this summer to do Tristram Shandy, at least one Umberto Eco novel, and Volume 3 of the Arabian Nights, which is probably most of the summer, but I could always reserve a few for early fall term.
The deadline for recommendations is Saturday the fourth.
