I was thinking this evening about a reading list that my 12th grade Advanced Placement English instructor handed out to us at the beginning of the 1996 school year. She said that it was a list of all the books that our college professors would expect us to have read, or at least be familiar with, when we began our freshman year. I remember panicking because I had only read a couple---even though I considered myself very well-read at the time.
Now that I've had a good 11 or 12 years to work on the list, I find that I've still only read a few. However, I am now familiar with many of these...and, after thinking it through a little, have decided that this reading list is ridiculous for the average teenager. Even though I was a very good student and had a high understanding at 17 years old, there was a lot that I still hadn't experienced. I've read a few of these books just in the last couple of years and can honestly say that had I tried them at any younger of a maturity, I just wouldn't have "gotten it". There is a reason that they remain timeless classics---but it's not because these titles make a college freshman successful. It's because they speak to a higher level of understanding that only an adult who has been out there in the "real world" can really possess.
The list below looks very similar to the list I was handed 12 years ago in AP English. I've highlighted in red the books I've read. I wonder, how many on the list have you read? What is your response to the idea that these stories require more maturity than the average highschooler possesses?
The Three Musketeers (1844) Alexandre Dumas
Ivanhoe (1820) Sir Walter Scott
The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) Alexandre Dumas
Last of the Mohicans (1826) James Fenimore Cooper
Moby Dick (1851) Herman Melville
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Charles Dickens
Robin Hood (1883) Howard Pyle
Arabian Nights (1704) Antony Galland
Les Miserables (1862) Victor Hugo
Robinson Crusoe (1719) Daniel Defoe
Don Quixote (1605) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Washington Irving: Rip Van Winkle (1819), The Headless Horseman (1819)
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1883) Robert Louis Stevenson
Westward Ho! (1855) Charles Kingsley
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) Harriet Beecher Stowe
Gulliver's Travels (1726) Jonathan Swift
The Deerslayer (1841) James Fenimore Cooper
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) Victor Hugo
Huckleberry Finn (1884) Mark Twain
The Corsican Brothers (1845) Alexandre Dumas
3 Famous Mysteries: The Sign of the Four (1890) Arthur Conan Doyle, The Flayed Hand (1880) Guy de Maupassant, Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) Edgar Allen Poe
The Pathfinder (1840) James Fenimore Cooper
Oliver Twist (1838) Charles Dickens
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) Mark Twain
Two Years Before the Mast (1840) Richard Henry Dana Jr.
Frankenstein (1818) Mary Shelley
Marco Polo (1921) Donn Byrne
Michael Strogoff (1876) Jules Verne
The Prince and the Pauper (1882) Mark Twain
The Moonstone (1868) William Wilkie Collins
The Black Arrow (1888) Robert Louis Stevenson
Lorna Doone (1869) Richard Doddridge Blackmore
Sherlock Holmes Stories: A Study in Scarlet (1887) Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) Arthur Conan Doyle
Mysterious Island (1874) Jules Verne
Last Days of Pompeii (1834) Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Typee (1846) Herman Melville
The Pioneers (1822) James Fenimore Cooper
The Adventures of Cellini (1562) Benvenuto Cellini
Jane Eyre (1847) Charlotte Bronte
Edgar Allen Poe Mysteries: Pit and the Pendulum (1845), Adventures of Hans Pfall (1845), The Fall of the House of Usher (1838)
Twenty Years After (1845) Alexandre Dumas
Swiss Family Robinson (1813) Johann Wyss
Great Expectations (1861) Charles Dickens
Mysteries of Paris (1842) Eugene Sue
Tom Brown's School Days (1856) Thomas Hughes
Kidnapped (1886) Robert Louis Stevenson
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870) Jules Verne
David Copperfield (1850) Charles Dickens
Alice in Wonderland (1865) Lewis Carroll (C.L. Dodgson)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) Mark Twain
The Spy (1821) James Fenimore Cooper
The House of the Seven Gables (1851) Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Christmas Carol (1843) Charles Dickens
The Man in the Iron Mask (1850) Alexandre Dumas
Silas Marner (1861) George Eliot (Marian Evans)
Toilers of the Sea (1866) Victor Hugo
The Song of Hiawatha (1855) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Prairie (1827) James Fenimore Cooper
Wuthering Heights (1847) Emily Bronte....currently reading
Black Beauty (1860) Anna Sewell
The Woman in White (1860) William Wilkie Collins
Western Stories: The Luck of Roaring Camp (1870) Bret Harte, The Outcasts of Poker Flats (1870) Bret Harte
Man Without a Country (1863) Edward Everett Hale
Treasure Island (1883) Robert Louis Stevenson
Benjamin Franklin (1817) Benjamin Franklin
The Cloister and the Hearth (1861) Charles Reade
The Scottish Chiefs (1809) Jane Porter
Julius Caesar (1607) William Shakespeare
Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) Jules Verne
The Pilot (1823) James Fenimore Cooper
The Man Who Laughs (1869) Victor Hugo
The Oregon Trail (1849) Francis Parkman
The Black Tulip (1850) Alexandre Dumas
Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836) Captain Frederick Marryat
The Lady of the Lake (1810) Sir Walter Scott
The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) Anthony Hope (Hawkins)
The Iliad (962 B.C.) Homer
Joan of Arc (1801) Frederick Schiller
Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) Edmond Rostand
White Fang (1906) Jack London
The Odyssey (927 B.C.) Homer
The Master of Ballantrae (1889) Robert Louis Stevenson
The Jungle Book (1894) Rudyard Kipling
Edgar Allen Poe: The Gold Bug (1843), The Tell-Tale Heart (1845), A Cask of Amontillado (1845)
The Sea Wolf (1904) Jack London
Under Two Flags (1868) Ouida (Louisa de la Rame)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1855) William Shakespeare
Men of Iron (1891) Howard Pyle
Crime and Punishment (1866) Feodor Dostoevsky
Green Mansions (1904) William Henry Hudson
The Call of the Wild (1903) Jack London
Henry W. Longfellow: Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), Evangeline (1847)
Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) Mark Twain
David Balfour (1893) Robert Louis Stevenson
All Quiet on the Western Front (1928) Erich Maria Remarque
Daniel Boone (1939) John Bakeless
King Solomon's Mines (1885) H. Rider Heggard
The Red Badge of Courage (1895) Stephen Crane
Hamlet (1603) William Shakespeare
Mutiny on the Bounty (1932) Charles Nordhoff & James Hall
William Tell (1804) Frederick Schiller
The White Company (1891) Arthur Conan Doyle
Men Against the Sea (1933) Charles Nordhoff & James Hall
Bring 'em Back Alive (1930) Frank Buck & Edward Anthony
From the Earth to the Moon (1870) Jules Verne
Buffalo Bill (1920) William F. Cody
King of the Khyber Rifles (1916) Talbot Mundy
Knights of the Round Table (1903) Howard Pyle
Pitcairn's Island (1939) Charles Nordhoff & James Hall
The Speckled Band (1892) Arthur Conan Doyle
The Talisman (1825) Sir Walter Scott
Kit Carson (1873) John S.C. Abbott
The Forty-Five Guardsmen (1848) Alexandre Dumas
The Red Rover (1827) James Fenimore Cooper
How I Found Livingstone (1872) Henry M. Stanley
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Bottle Imp (1891), The Beach at Falesa (1892)
Captains Courageous (1897) Rudyard Kipling
Rob Roy (1818) Sir Walter Scott
Soldiers of Fortune (1897) Richard Harding Davis
The Hurricane (1936) Charles Nordhoff & James Hall
Wild Bill Hickok (no author listed)
The Mutineers (1920) Charles Boardman Hawes
Fang and Claw (1935) Frank Buck
War of the Worlds (1898) H.G. Wells
The Oxbow Incident (1940) Walter Van Tilburg Clark
The Downfall (1892) Emile Zola
The King of the Mountains (1857) Edmond About
Macbeth (1606) William Shakespeare
Davy Crockett (no author listed)
Caesar's Conquests (51 B.C.) Julius Caesar
The Covered Wagon (1922) Emerson Hough
The Dark Frigate (1923) Charles Boardman Hawes
The Time Machine (1895) H.G. Wells
Romeo and Juliet (1597) William Shakespeare
Waterloo (1868) Emile Erckmann & Alexandre Chatrian
Lord Jim (1900) Joseph Conrad (Korzeniowski)
The Little Savage (1848) Captain Frederick Marryat
A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) Jules Verne
In the Reign of Terror (1890) G.A. Henty
On Jungle Trails (1936) Frank Bucks
Castle Dangerous (1831) Sir Walter Scott
Abraham Lincoln (1952) Benjamin Thomas
Kim (1901) Rudyard Kipling
The First Men in the Moon (1901) H.G. Wells
The Crisis (1901) Winston Churchill
With Fire and Sword (1890) Henry Sienkiewicz
Ben Hur (1880) Lew Wallace
Lafitte the Pirate (1930) Lyle Saxon
Off on a Comet (1878) Jules Verne
The Virginian (1902) Owen Wister
Won by the Sword (1899) G.A. Henty
Wild Animals I Have Known (1898) Ernest Thompson Seton
The Invisible Man (1897) H.G. Wells
The Conspiracy of the Pontiac (1851) Francis Parkman
The Lion of the North (1890) G.A. Henty
Conquest of Mexico (1632) Bernal Diez Del Castillo
Lives of the Hunted (1902) Ernest Thompson Seton
The Conspirators (1843) Alexandre Dumas
The Octopus (1901) Frank Norris
The Food of the Gods (1904) H.G. Wells
Cleopatra (1889) H. Rider Haggard
Robur the Conqueror (1886) Jules Verne
Master of the World (1904) Jules Verne
The Cossack Chief (1839) Nikotai Gogol
The Queen's Necklace (1849) Alexandre Dumas
Tigers and Traitors (1880) Jules Verne
Faust (1808/1832) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This list can be found at: http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1997/june97/list.html
i just graduated college with a degree in English Lit and i have only read 18 of those books so i think your HS teacher is crazy!
ReplyDeleteErika made me feel better. I've read only 22 books on the list and was feeling like I was not well-read.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's unrealistic to expect highschoolers to read, much less comprehend all of these books.
I've read a few of them- I didn't bother to count. I've seen some Shakespeare plays but haven't read them. Does that count? But you are right that even though I haven't read most of them I could tell you something about many of them just from hearing about them from other sources. Or seeing a movie. (sheepish grin). I've seen this list (or one like it) many times- the library had one out not too long ago. I remember getting one in high school too and feeling very discouraged.
ReplyDeleteMany of them are on the Ambleside reading list so I will get the chance to read more of them!