Chapter I: Preface

This Little Blue Book is not for students of literature, but just for folks who have not time or opportunity to read the works of the great writers of earlier days. Every thoughtful man or woman would like to know a little about them. Almost every day you read or hear an allusion to Homer or Plato, Vergil or Horace, Chaucer or Dante, and so on. You would like, if it is possible to tell you in a few simple pages, to know who these men were, in what circumstances and on what themes they wrote, what special interest or distinction the most famous plays or poems or books of each of them possesses.

By the classics we mean in literature, not merely the old Greek or Roman works, but the literary masterpieces of every age which live forever on account of their supreme art or interest. It is not good to be entirely ignorant about them: it is easy and pleasant to have a few intelligent ideas about them. About a hundred writers of the last three thousand years have earned this kind of immortality, and we will take them in order. Hence, although this small book cannot be a history of literature--I may provide one later--it will give a kind of sketch of that history and the place in it of each of the great writers who is described.

FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE CLASSICS