Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each one links straight to the page it comes from.

1. Dickens gets exactly one slot — for a backwards reason. Powys includes only Great Expectations because "All Dickens' novels have a unique value, and such an equal value, that almost any one" could stand for the rest — equality as grounds for exclusion. Read it in the book →
2. Alice needs no defense. "It would be ridiculous to compile a list of a hundred best books and leave out this one" — and lack of space alone keeps Through the Looking Glass off the list. Read it in the book →
3. Catullus is diagnosed as neurotic. Caesar's contemporary is "of all the ancient lyrical poets, the one most modern and neurotic in feeling" — 1916 psychology applied to 60 B.C. Read it in the book →
4. Voltaire is knighted — unexpectedly. Powys calls him "a true man of action, a knight of the Holy Ghost" who "fought through a laborious life, against obscurantism, stupidity and tyranny." Read it in the book →
5. Lamb wins the prose crown outright. "Charles Lamb remains, of all English prose-writers, the one whose manner is the most beautiful… for sheer magic and inspiration, his equal" is not to be found. Read it in the book →
6. America's third poet is announced. "After Whitman and Poe, Mr. Masters is by far the most original and interesting of American poets" — the Spoon River Anthology was one year old when Powys canonized it. Read it in the book →
7. A scandalous Russian makes the hundred. Artzibasheff's Sanine is admitted with a warning: "Artzibasheff is an extremist… Pessimism, in a superficial sense, could hardly go further." Read it in the book →
8. Translations are vetted like vintages. Cervantes may be read "in any translation except those vulgarized by eighteenth century taste"; Dante only in the Temple Classics with the Italian facing the English. Read it in the book →
9. D'Annunzio is praised by subtraction. "Without light and shade, without 'nuance,' without humor or irony, he compels our atte[ntion]" — a compliment built entirely of missing parts. Read it in the book →