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Read Me What to read, 1701-1750

< 1601-1700 | 1751-1800 >

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Earlier 18th Century

K'UNG Shang-jen
The Peach Blossom Fan (Chen Shih-hsiang, trans. 1976) ...an important Ming k'un-ch'u drama. --A Guide to Oriental Classics (3rd Ed. 1989) p. 238

Count de MIRABEAU (Honore Gabriel Riqueti 1749-1791)
Memoirs (1834)

Vittorio ALFIERI (1749-1803) Reference: Lynch
Saul (1782)

Edward JENNER (1749-1823) Etext: The Online Books Page
An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae (1798) full title 'An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow Pox'
he had demonstrated in twenty-two cases that vaccination with cowpox matter gave complete protection against smallpox. --Robert B. Downs

Pierre Simon, Marquis de LAPLACE (1749-1827) It was in that rather restrictive and perfectly reasonable sense--the sense in which he had concluded that God did not need to *intervene* to keep the planets in their orbits--that he uttered the famous line to Napolean, when the latter asked him about the place of God in his explanation: 'Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypotheses'--I have no need of that hypothesis. --Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, Reasonable Science, Reasonable Faith, First Things, April 2007, p. 22
Celestial Mechanics (Mecanique Celeste 1799-1825)
Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (Theorie analytique des probabilites 1812)

Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE (1749-1832) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post [T]he man whose influence on his nation has been greater than that of any man since Luther... --George Henry Lewes, 'The Life of Goethe' (1855)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werther 1774)
One star: Egmont (1788)
has little in the way of plot but shows the downfall of a great man as a result of treachery. --Philip Ward
One star: Roman Elegies (Romische Elegien 1790)
Venetian Epigrams (1790)
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre 1796)
One star: Hermann and Dorothea (1797)
Four stars: Faust (1808, 1832) Criticism: David P. Goldman essay 'Faust' is a genuine myth, i.e., a great primordial image, in which every man has to discover his own being and destiny in his own way. --Jacob Burckhardt Faust can be seen as representative man lusting for and yet in flight from individuation. --John Banville, New York Review of Books, October 4, 2001, p. 40
'Faust, Part One' is dramatically compelling, and an endless inspiration to the northern imagination. ... 'Part Two' conjures up many of the aging Goethe's most powerful evocations of nature, and above all that generous and sunlit sense of the beauty of the south and of classical landscape and myth which he himself had acquired as he moved from his early Romantic and Germanic preoccupations into his poetic maturity. --Anthony O'Hear
Elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften 1809)
Two stars: Poetry and Truth from My Own Life (Aus Meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit 1811-1833)
Italian Journey (Italienische Reise 1817)
One star: West-Eastern Divan (Westostlicher Diwan 1819)
Wilhelm Meister's Years of Wandering (Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, oder Die Entsagenden 1821)
Conversations with Eckermann (Gespräche mit Goethe 1836)
Reflections and Maxims anthology: selections from 'Elective Affinites', 'Art and Antiquity', and from the 'Periodical Issues on Morphology' (1999) Bookseller: Powell's

One star: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers (Chushingura c. 1748) Etext: Japanese Text Initiative Criticism: post
by Takeda Kiyosada (Takeda Izumo, c. 1690-c. 1749) with Miyoshi Shoraku (1696-1772) and Namiki Senryu (Namiki Sosuke, 1695-1751)
A lord is provoked to kill a court official and is subsequently ordered to commit suicide. His retainers band together to avenge his death. The play is interspersed with love scenes, thus combining the two most popular plots of the puppet stage. --Philip Ward

Jeremy BENTHAM (1748-1832) Etext: The Online Books Page
Comment on the Commentaries (1774-1775)
One star: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
Theory of Legislation (1864; Traits de legislation civile et penale 1802)
Anarchial Fallacies (in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 Vols. 1838-1843, Vol. 2)
full title Anarchial Fallacies: Being an Examination of the Declaration of Rights Issued During the French Revolution
Theory of Fictions (1932)

Johann Heinrich PESTALOZZI (1746-1827) Etext: The Online Books Page
How Gertrude Teaches Her Children (1801)

Johann Gottfried von HERDER (1744-1803)
Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784-1791)

Jean Baptiste de LAMARCK (1744-1829) ...proposed that the world was not static but changing, with simpler organisms progressing to more complex animals and man at the top of the scale. --Paul Raeburn, New York Times Book Review, December 16, 2001, p. 12
Zoological Philosophy (1809)

Marquis de CONDORCET (Marie Jean Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, 1743-1794) Criticism: post believed in a malleable human nature and the perfectibility of man, and promoted a historicist vision of the inevitable march of progress. --John Fonte
Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1795) This program by Condorcet seem to be the first systematic project, elaborated by a Western totalitarian for the radical destruction of all civilizations of mankind, the high civilizations as well as the less differentiated native civilizations, and for transforming the surface of the globe into the habitat of a standardized mankind that is formed by the ideology of a handful of megalomaniac intellectuals. --Eric Voegelin, quoted in The Review of Politics, Fall 2000, p. 815

Antoine Laurent LAVOISIER (1743-1794)
One star: Elements of Chemistry (1789) The now fashionable notion that a science is a language, involving a systematic, precise arrangement of terms, was proclaimed in the 18th century by the Abbe de Condillac and Lavoisier. --Peter Wolff, Foundations of Science and Mathematics (1960), p. 212

William PALEY (1743-1805) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post
Views of the Evidences of Christianity (1794)

Thomas JEFFERSON (1743-1826) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Monticello Criticism: post
A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
Notes on Virginia (1784) Criticism: John Zvesper review
Letter to Edward Carrington (Jan. 16, 1787)
Letter to James Madison (Jan. 30, 1787)
Letter to George Washington (May 2, 1788)
Letter to Benjamin Rush (Sept. 23, 1800)
First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1801)
Letter to John Adams (Oct. 28, 1813)
Letter to Peter Carr (Sept. 7, 1814)
Letter to Samuel Kercheval (July 12, 1816)

Pierre CHODERLOS DE LACLOS (1741-1803)
One star: Dangerous Liaisons (Les Liaisons dangereuses 1782) The strategies that Valmont and Mme de Merteuil suggest for each other in 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' invoke sex as a game of chess to ward off boredom. --Phillip Lopate, 'The Worldly Stendahl', The American Scholar, Winter 2001, p. 138

Arthur YOUNG (1741-1820) Etext: The Online Books Page
Travels in France (1792)

Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de CHAMFORT (1740-1794)
Products of the Perfected Civilization (selected writings 1969)

James BOSWELL (1740-1795) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: John Derbyshire review
One star: Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides (1785)
Three stars: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. (1791)
The most fascinating of all biographies, and one of universal appeal because its subject shared so deeply almost every aspect of the experience we all share. --Walter Jackson Bate
One star: London Journal 1762-1763 (1950) The journals have a 'modern' self-consciousness. They are partly about the writing of themselves and their role in his life. --Claude Rawson, The New York Times Book Review, January 7, 2001, p. 11

Cesare Bonesana Marchese Di BECCARIA (1738-1794) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Downs
On Crimes and Punishments (1764)

Edward GIBBON (1737-1794) Etext: The Online Books Page
Four stars: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) Criticism: Keith Windschuttle review | Jason Epstein review
Superseded in almost all details by later research and excavation ... nevertheless remains a masterly synthesis that can be read with profit for its insights and its style. --Philip Ward
One star: Memoirs of His Life or Autobiography (1796) shows him as a truly dedicated cosmopolitan, at home equally in France, Italy and Switzerland and master of classical and Romance languages, with an enthusiasm for science, military and political matters ... --Philip Ward, A Lifetime's Reading (1982) p. 41

Thomas PAINE (1737-1809) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post [A] better hand at pulling down than building... --John Adams, letter to Abagail Adams
Common Sense, Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (1776) the most widely read book written in the 18th century --Daniel N. Robinson, American Ideals: Founding a 'Republic of Virtue', Lecture 12: Paine and Burke, The Teaching Company
It was a clarion call to the American colonists to fight for their independence--without compromise or vacillation. Revolution was pointed out to them as the only solution of their conflict with Great Britain and George III. --Robert B. Downs
One star: The Rights of Man (1790, 1792) Criticism: John Barrell review
a reply to Edmund Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution'. --Robert B. Downs
The Age of Reason (1794)

Bernardin de SAINT PIERRE (1737-1814) Etext: The Online Books Page
Voyage to the Isle of France (1773)

RESTIF De La Bretonne (Nicolas Edme Restif 1734-1806)
Monsieur Nicolas (1794-1797)

UEDA Akinari (Ueda Tosaku, 1734-1809)
Ugetsu monogatari ("Tales of a Clouded Moon" 1776)

Pierre-Augustin Caron de BEAUMARCHAIS (1732-1799) Reference: Criticism: post
Le Barbier de Seville (1775)
offered a more sophisticated view of the servant or valet as comic hero in the tradition running from Roman comedy to the commedia dell' arte. --Philip Ward
Le Mariage de Figaro (1778)
a more serious note is struck by anti-aristocratic dialogue and situations. --Philip Ward

George WASHINGTON (1732-1799) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: post In London, George III questioned the American-born painter Benjamin West what Washington would do now he had won the war. 'Oh,' said West, 'they say he will return to his farm.' 'If he does that,' said the king, 'he will be the greatest man in the world.' --Paul Johnson, 'George Washington: The Founding Father'
First Annual Message to Congress (January 8, 1790)
Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Rhode Island (1790)
Farewell Address (1796)

William COWPER (1731-1800) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: The Task (1785)
One star: The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)

Oliver GOLDSMITH (1729-1774) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Irving
The Traveller (1764)
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
One star: The Deserted Village (1770)
One star: She Stoops to Conquer (1773)
Perennial stage favorite; classic upstairs-downstairs comedy, with the downstairs characters having rather the better of it. --Raphael and McLeish

Gotthold Ephraim LESSING (1729-1781) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: Laocoon (1766)
Emilia Galotti (1772)
a psychological tragedy ... set in a minor 18th-century Italian court. --Philip Ward
Nathan the Wise (Nathan der Weise 1779)

Edmund BURKE (1729-1797) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: The Edmund Burke Society Criticism: post
One star: The Sublime and the Beautiful (1756) full title: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful
Tract on the Popery Laws (c. 1761)
Speech on Arrival at Bristol (October 13, 1774)
Speech at Bristol (November 3, 1774) (1780)
according to which a member of Parliament represents the commonweal rather than his constituents. --Peter F. Drucker
Speech on American Taxation (1774)
Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies (March 22, 1775)
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)
Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol (1778)
Speech on Economical Reforms (February 11, 1780)
Letter to Charles James Fox (October 8, 1787)
Two stars: Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) Readers can establish to their satisfaction that Michael Freeman was correct, in his 1980 work 'Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism': the words 'tradition,' 'traditions,' and 'traditional appear nowhere in the body of the 'Reflections'. --The University Bookman In all his later political works, Burke was concerned to awaken his contemporaries not only to the dangers of revolutionary thinking, but also to the virtue and wisdom inherent in the customs which the French Revolution had held up to scorn. --Roger Scruton, Conservative Texts, p. 29 In the elimination of ageless institutions and practices, in the reduction of the authority of the church, he saw a liberation of the worst instincts of human nature, instincts that had long and healthily been controlled by monarchies and clergies for all their faults. --Daniel N. Robinson, American Ideals: Founding a 'Republic of Virtue', Lecture 12: Paine and Burke, The Teaching Company
Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (February 1791)
Letters on a Regicide Peace (October 1796)

Captain James COOK (1728-1779) Reference: Kitson biography
One star: The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery (1768-84)

Anne-Robert-Jacques TURGOT (1727-1788) Etext: The Online Books Page
On the Historical Progress of the Human Mind (1749)

James HUTTON (1726-1797) Etext: The Online Books Page
Theory of the Earth (1788) full title 'Theory of the Earth: or An Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe

Maurice MORGANN (1726-1802)
An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff (1777)

Giovanni Jacopo CASANOVA de Seingalt (1725-1798) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Criticism: post
History of My Life (1826-1838)

Immanuel KANT (1724-1804) Etext: Adelaide | The Online Books Page Study: Koons 16 | Koons 9 Reference: Richter | Friesian Criticism: post The story is told that his neighbors set their watches by his daily walk; he missed making his regular appearance only on the occasion when he became engrossed in Rousseau's 'Emile'. ----Peter Wolff, Philosophy of Law and Jurisprudence (1961), p. 173 Kant argued that the world as we know it is a mind-created representation, behind which lurks an unknowable realm of 'things in themselves'. --Jim Holt, Self Centered, review of 'The Human Touch' by Michael Frayn, The New York Times Book Review, February 18, 2007, p. 14
Lectures on Ethics (1775-1780)
Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1780)
Two stars: Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
The philosopher who, like his medieval precursor Cardinal Nicholas Cusanus, defines and sets limits for human capacities and presents, one may hope, guidelines for ethics and behavior more satisfying than those provided by hubris and wills to power. --Reginald Phelps
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)
In 'Prolegomena' Kant sketches the cool outlines of his magnificent vision--a reconciliation of rationalism and empiricism--as an introduction to his 'Critique of Pure Reason'... . --Raphael and McLeish
Idea of Universal History (1784)
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785)
It has two windows: one looks out on the Enlightenment and all that's best in modern culture, the other looks back at ancient cultures and their greatest achievement, stoicism. --Orlando Patterson
One star: Critique of Practical Reason (1788) In a startling reversal of the traditional order in these things, he attributes to the practical reason or moral experience a wider range of apprehension than is attainable through the operations of the intellect. The practical reason, according to Kant, provides the speculative reason with basic metaphysical ideas which it cannot reach by itself and which it needs for its own work. --Seymour Cain, Ethics: The Study of Moral Values (1962), p. 228
The Critique of Judgement (1790) His 'Critique of Judgment' says what is, in Carey's words, 'patently untrue,' namely that the beautiful may be so called only if the speaker believes that everybody else shares his opinion, and also that standards of beauty are absolute and universal. From the same unreliable source came the notion that art objects must be of no practical use, provoke no emotion and offer no sensuous pleasure. The beautiful can give pleasure only as a symbol of the morally good. Artists whose work satisfies these requirements are called geniuses. --Frank Kermode, Yearning for the 'Utile,' review of What Good Are the Arts, by John Carey, London Review of Books, June 23, 2005, p. 21
One star: The Science of Right (1790) 'The Science of Right' is part of a larger work, the 'Metaphysic of Ethics'... --Peter Wolff, The Development of Political Theory and Government (1959), p. 165 An alternate title for 'The Science of Right' might be 'Philosophy of Law'. Kant is interested in rights insofar as they give rise to laws. ----Peter Wolff, Philosophy of Law and Jurisprudence (1961), p. 174
On the Saying: That a Thing May be Right in Theory, but may not Hold in Practice (1793)
Eternal Peace; a Philosophical Proposal or On Perpetual Peace (1795) Kant's moral condemnation of the state of nature and the warfare that results from it is most explicit when he considers not men, but nations, in a state of nature. --Peter Wolff, The Development of Political Theory and Government (1959), p. 168

William BLACKSTONE (1723-1780) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: David Womersley review
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69)
covers the entire field of common law as it existed in the eighteenth century, plus innumerable definitions and a vast amount of legal history. --Robert B. Downs

Adam SMITH (1723-1790) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Adam Smith Institute Criticism: post Despite the fact, often noted, that the phrase occurs only three times in Smith's writings, the idea of the invisible hand is as central to his argument as it is generally held to be. --Paul Mattick, The New York Times Book Review, July 8, 2001, p. 25
One star: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Smith's broader political views rest on the moral psychology elaborated in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. --Francis Fukuyama, The Public Interest, Summer 1999, p. 123
Two stars: The Wealth of Nations (1776) full title: 'An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' probably the most important book that has ever been written, and...certainly the most valuable contribution ever made by a single man towards establishing the principles on which government should be based. --Henry Buckle These markets constitute 'the system of natural liberty' because they shatter traditional hierarchies, exclusions, and privileges. --Andreas Kalyvas and Ira Katznelson, The Review of Politics, Summer 2001, p. 550 Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' has a philosophical dimension (liberalism), an organizational dimension (the pursuit of self-interest), and a technical dimension (the division of labor). --G. R. Steele, 'Critical thoughts about Critical Realism', Critical Review, Vol. 17, Nos. 1-2, pp. 133-34
He maintained the a nation's real wealth is in consumers' goods, instead of gold and silver. He opposed tariffs, export subsidies, and 'favorable balances of trade', favoring, on the contrary, free competition and a free market, as little governmental interference with business as possible, and high wages for workers... --Robert B. Downs

Christopher SMART (1722-1771) Etext: The Online Books Page
A Song to David
Jubilate Agno (1939)

William COLLINS (1721-1759) Etext: The Online Books Page
Poetical works of William Collins (1765)

Tobias SMOLLETT (1721-1771) Etext: The Online Books Page
The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748)
The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker (1771)
Humphrey is an ostler--prefiguring Dickens' Sam Weller--attendant on a family journeying through England and Scotland. --Raphael and McLeish

John WOOLMAN (1720-1772) Etext: The Online Books Page | Street Corner Society
One star: Journal of Life and Times (1774)
For thirty years the elderly Woolman travelled about the American colonies trying to persuade his fellow Quakers that owning people was wrong. As a direct result the Quakers were the first important group to ban slavery, a fuse that lead to the Civil War and beyond. --Raphael and McLeish

Gilbert WHITE (1720-1793) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: The Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne (1789)
Diary of a naturalist, records year-by-year changes in the author's curacy at Selbourne, Hampshire, in minute detail down to the first snowdrops of spring and the departure of summer's last swallow. --Raphael and McLeish

Thomas GRAY (1716-1771) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Mullan
Ode on a Distant Prospect at Eton College (1742)
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751)
Ode on a Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes (1753)

YU'AN Mei (1716-1798) Reference: Renditions
Sui-yuan ch'uan chi ("Poetry Talks of Harmony Garden")

TS'AO Hsueh-Ch'in (Ts'ao Chan c. 1715-1763) Etext: The University of Adelaide Study: Criticism: post
Two stars: The Dream of the Red Chamber (Hung-lou meng, mid-18th C.) ...remains by common consent the greatest Chinese novel... --William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West, p. 714
realistic-allegorical novel of the decline of a great family and its young heir's involvment in the world of passion and depravity. --A Guide to Oriental Classics

Laurence STERNE (1713-1768) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: Laurence Sterne in Cyberspace Criticism: Brooke Allen essay [Sterne's works] form the best course of morality that ever was written. --Thomas Jefferson
Two stars: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. (1760-1767) Criticism: Kenneth Rexroth review
It is an endlessly digressive autobiography that begins with his conception and barely gets up to his birth. Sterne writes a lovely, leisurely sentence that can wind on for three hundred words and you never lose your way or have to look back. --Thomas C. Schnelling
Two stars: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768)

Denis DIDEROT (1713-1784) Etext: The Online Books Page
One star: Encyclopedia (Editor 1751-72) Criticism: Daniels full title 'Encyclopedia, or Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts'
Memoirs of a Nun (1796)
Jacques the Fatalist and his Master (1796)
One star: Rameau's Nephew (Le neveu de Rameau 1805)

Jean Jacques ROUSSEAU (1712-1778) Etext: The Online Books Page | Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics Reference: Rousseau Association Criticism: Mary Ann Glendon essay | Isaiah Berlin lecture | post ...one wants to walk on all fours when one reads your work. --Voltaire, letter to Rousseau, August 30, 1765 How we get from that original postulation of autonomy, and its intensely private experience of solitude, to sexual intimacy and political community is of course Rousseau's great project. --Leah Bradshaw, The Review of Politics, Winter 2001, p. 201
Le Devin du Village (opera, 1752) Bookseller: Amazon
On Political Economy (1755) The insoluble dilemma faced by Rousseau was that only virtuous politicians can create the laws and mores through which a virtuous citizenry could be formed, but that required a superhuman legislator, which Rousseau could only conjure. --Jerry Z. Muller, The Public Interest, Summer 2001, p. 113 by reworking the classical themes of ancient republicanism, Rousseau provided a comprehensive indictment of a society where the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury had replaced a simple life lived according to the dictates of justice. --Jeremy Jennings, Luxury in French Political Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas, January 2007, p. 81
One star: A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755) Rousseau argued that what made men bad were the institutions of inequality by which society is structured in depth. --Martin Greenberg, The New Criterion, March 2002, p. 11 The proper question should rather have been: 'What is the origin of society? And is man by nature social? --Carolina Armenteros, 'From Human Nature to Norman Humanity: Joseph de Maistre, Rousseau, and the Origins of Moral Statistics', Journal of the History of Ideas, January 2007, p. 109
A Lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe (1756)
Two stars: The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right (1762) This reveals the crucial point in Rousseau's theory: *men can be forced to be free*.Their enchainment--when it results from a state set up by the social contract--does not lead to slavery but to liberty. For although there are many things that a citizen may be forced to do, nevertheless, if he is forced in a certain way, he remains free. --Peter Wolff, The Development of Political Theory and Government (1959), p. 157 It is important to realize that the general will is infallible. By definition, the general will is that will which tends to the public good ... . Since the general will is infallible, it can, of course, never be unjust. This explains how men are free, even though they are subject to the laws. --Peter Wolff, Philosophy of Law and Jurisprudence (1961), p. 162 Rousseau tells me that if I freely surrender all the parts of my life to society, I create an entity which, because it has been built by an equality of sacrifice of all its members, cannot wish to hurt any one of them; in such a society, we are informed, it can be in nobody's interest to damage anyone else. --Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, Part V Clearly Utilitarian doctrine was conceptually anticipated by Rousseau's distinction between the 'general will'--the decision that is *actually* conducive to the good of all--and the 'will of all': the decision people *think* is conducive to that end. --Jeffrey Friedman, Democratic Competence in Normative and Positive Theory: Neglected Implications of 'The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics', Critical Review, Vol. 18 Nos. 1-3, p. xviii
The most powerful attempt to reconcile freedom and authority, self-fulfillment and community. --Stanley Hoffman
One star: Emile (1762) In his pedagogical treatise cum novel, Rousseau portrays the development of human capacities in accordance with nature. --John T. Scott, The Review of Politics, Summer 2001, p. 593 ...the idea of a state of nature opened up a way for Rousseau to explain the human weakness he emphasized in Calvinist terms, without embracing the dogma of original sin whose denial had caused his break with the Catholic Church (and 'Emile's condemnation by the Archbishop of Paris). --Carolina Armenteros, 'From Human Nature to Norman Humanity: Joseph de Maistre, Rousseau, and the Origins of Moral Statistics', Journal of the History of Ideas, January 2007, p. 117-118
Julie, or the New Heloise (Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise, 1762)
Two stars: Confessions (1782)
Writer, thinker, composer, Rousseau fought with all his friends, was always in a disastrous amorous state, lived a humdrum life with a mistress whose five children went to the foundling hospital. Unrivalled self-portrait of a difficult, distracted genius at loggerheads with everyday life. --Raphael and McLeish

David HUME (1711-1776) Etext: Adelaide | The Online Books Page Study: Robert C. Koons lecture 15 | Robert C. Koons lecture 8 Criticism: post ...rigorous thinking in the solitude of his study led him ineluctably to the conclusion that neither he himself nor the physical world could be known to exist. But as soon as he went outside, he cheerfully admitted, he was as convinced of the reality of his walk through the streets of London as anyone else. --Paul Mattick, When Philosophy Was King, The New York Times Book Review, October 8, 2000 p. 30
One star: A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740) Indeed, it may be fair to say that the whole of modern philosophy is an argument over the first book of his Treatise on Human Nature. --Sean Gabb, The Salisbury Review, Autumn 2003
One star: Essays, Moral, Political and Literary (1741)
One star: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (Philosophical Essays 1748) He does not openly deny the reality of God's existence, perfection, miracles, and providence. He simply questions whether belief in such things can be grounded in human experience and reason. --Seymour Cain, Religion and Theology (1961), p. 210 With this work modern empirical philosophy begins, and the theory of knowledge becomes a central concern of philosophy. --Seymour Cain, Ethics: The Study of Moral Values (1962), p. 183
encapsulates the central doctrines and themes of Hume's radically empiricist philosophy. --Raphael and McLeish
Letter to Gilbert Eliot (March 10, 1751)
Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751)
History of England (1754)
Natural History of Religion (1757)

Samuel JOHNSON (1709-1784) Etext: The Online Books Page | The Rambler 1-54, 55-112, 171-208, Univerity of Virginia | Skye Criticism: see Boswell | post The quintessential Englishman, the epitome of the 'Age of Johnson,' favored lofty abstractions, moralistic content and elaborate Latinate style. --Jeffrey Myers, 'Shade's Shadow', The New Criterion, May 2006 p. 31
London (1738)
One star: The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
Rambler (1750-1753)
Letter to the Earl of Chesterfield (Feb. 7, 1755)
One star: Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
One star: Rasselas (1759) Rasselas is not contented with his lot. He wants to escape the happy valley and see the outside world. --Anthony Daniels, Conservative Classic - 19, Salisbury Review, Autumn 2005 p. 35
Idler (1758-1760)
Letter to a Lady (June 8, 1762)
Letter to James Boswell (Dec. 8, 1763)
Preface to Shakespeare (1765)
The scholarship in this monumental edition is less than one might have expected but the preface and the notes to the various plays are masterly. --Raphael and McLeish
Letter to William Drummond (Aug. 13, 1766)
Tour of the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
One star: The Lives of the Poets (1779-1781)
Celebrated studies of 52 poets...from the early 17th century to the late 18th. 18th century prose at its magisterial, grandiloquent best. --Raphael and McLeish
Letter to James Boswell (June 3, 1782)
Letter to James Boswell (Dec. 7, 1782)
Johnsonian Miscellanies, edited by John Birkbeck Hill (1897)

Henry FIELDING (1707-1754) Etext: The Online Books Page Reference: MacLeod
One star: Joseph Andrews (1742)
Four stars: Tom Jones (1749)
full title The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling Fielding has given us something far more than a picaresque tale of adventures along the road. The adventures carry forward and complicate the plot and theme of the story. The characters that are encountered are connected with the story and contribute to the incidents that take place. --Seymour Cain, Imaginative Literature II: From Cervantes to Dostoevsky (1962), p. 69-70
The History of Tom Jones is long for modern taste: lacking in 'development', a gallery of rogues and rips, it demands to be read at a gallop. --Raphael and McLeish

Carolus LINNAEUS (Carl Von Linne 1707-1778) Criticism: post
System of Nature (1758-59)
A Tour in Lapland (1811)

Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de BUFFON (1707-1788) Criticism: post
Natural History (1749-89)

Carlo GOLDONI (1707-1793)
began to reform the stock improvisatory commedia dell'arte ... introducing realistic situations, starting to abolish the masks, and providing dialogue suitable to each character. --Philip Ward
The Servant of Two Masters (Il servitore di due padroni, 1745)
Goldoni is underrated in the English-speaking world (possibly because of scarce, poor translations). He is as funny as Moliere or Beaumarchais; a master of farcical comedy, with a warmth like that of (say) Goldsmith's. --Raphael and McLeish
Mine Hostess (La Locandiera, 1753)
The Boors (I Rusteghi, 1760)
The Fan (Il Ventaglio, 1765)

Benjamin FRANKLIN (1706-1790)
Autobiography (1771-1788) Etext: The Online Books Page | The Universal Library Criticism: post
The quintessential American success story, from rags not only to riches, but also to great political influence and power and an eternal warm spot in the hearts of all his countrymen. --Raphael and McLeish

John WESLEY (1703-1791) Etext: The Online Books Page Criticism: Oakes | Spalding
Journal (1735-90)

WU Ch'ing-tzu (1701-1754)
The Scholars (Ju-lin wai-shih 1768-1777) Study: McKenny full title 'The Unofficial History of Confucian Scholars'
First, it is the greatest purely satirical novel from China; second, it reveals the weaknesses of Ch'ing society as no factual account of the period possibly could (though allegedly set in Ming times); third, it acts as a masculine equivalent to the feminine 'Dream of the Red Chamber', as it takes place in a milieu almost exclusively populated by men -- the milieu of scholars who have qualified for office by means of the official examination. --Philip Ward

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Revised November 7, 2010.

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