Thinker's Library
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Thinker's Library was a series of 140 small hardcover books published for the Rationalist Press Association by Watts & Co., London between 1929 and 1951. They consisted of a selection of essays, literature, and extracts from greater works by various classical and contemporary humanists and rationalists, continuing in the tradition of the Renaissance.
[edit] Catalogue of titles
Each volume consists of an eponymous essay sometimes followed by a collection of related essays by the same author, or an introductory extract from a greater work by that author. Any deviation from this format will be self-explanatory from the title. All foreign language texts were published in the English language.
- "First and Last Things" by H. G. Wells
- "Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical" by Herbert Spencer
- "The Riddle of the Universe" by Ernst Haeckel
- "Humanity's Gain from Unbelief, and Other Selections from the Works of Charles Bradlaugh"
- "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill
- "A Short History of the World" by H. G. Wells
- "Autobiography of Charles Darwin"
- "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin
- "Twelve Years in a Monastery" by Joseph McCabe
- "History of Modern Philosophy" by A. W. Benn (1930)
- "Gibbon on Christianity" - chapters 15 and 16 of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1930)
- "The Descent of Man" - Part 1 and the concluding chapter of Part 3, by Charles Darwin (1930)
- "History of Civilization in England" - Volume 1, by Henry Thomas Buckle
- "Anthropology" - Vol. 1, by Sir Edward B. Tylor
- Ditto - Vol. 2
- "Iphigenia" - Two plays, by Euripides, translated by C.B.Bonner
- "Lectures and Essays" by Thomas Henry Huxley
- "The Evolution of the Idea of God" by Grant Allen
- "An Agnostic's Apology, and Other Essays" by Sir Leslie Stephen (March, 1931)
- "The Churches and Modern Thought" by Vivian Phelips
- "Penguin Island" by Anatole France
- "The Pathetic Fallacy" by Llewelyn Powys
- "Historical Trials (A Selection)" by Sir John MacDonell
- "A Short History of Christianity" by J. M. Robertson
- "The Martyrdom of Man" by Winwood Reade
- "Head-hunters, Black, White, and Brown" by Alfred C. Haddon (1932)
- "The Evidence for the Supernatural" by Ivor L. L. Tuckett
- "The City of Dreadful Night and other poems" - A selection from the poetical works of James Thomson (1932)
- "In the Beginning: The Origin of Civilisation" by G. Elliot Smith
- "Adonis: a Study in the History of Oriental Religion" - from The Golden Bough by Sir James G. Frazer (1932)
- "Our New Religion" by H. A. L. Fisher
- "On Compromise" by John Morley
- "A History of the Taxes on Knowledge" by Collet Dobson Collet
- "The Existence of God" by Joseph McCabe
- "The Story of the Bible" by MacLeod Yearsley
- "Savage Survivals: The Story of the Race Told in Simple Languages" by J. Howard Moore
- "The Revolt of the Angels" by Anatole France
- "The Outcast" by Winwood Reade
- "Penalties Upon Opinion" by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner
- "Oath, Curse, and Blessing" by Ernest Crawley
- "Fireside Science" by Sir E. Ray Lankester
- "History of Anthropology" by Alfred C. Haddon (1934)
- "The World's Earliest Laws" by Chilperic Edwards (1934)
- "Fact and Faith" by JBS Haldane
- "The Men of the Dawn" by Dorothy Davison
- "The Mind in the Making" by James Harvey Robinson
- "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" by Charles Darwin
- "Psychology for Everyman (and Woman)" by A. E. Mander
- "The Religion of the Open Mind" by Adam Gowans Whyte
- "Letters on Reasoning" by J. M. Robertson
- "The Social Record of Christianity" by Joseph McCabe
- "Five Stages of Greek Religion: Studies Based on a Course of Lectures Delivered in April 1912 at Columbia University" by Gilbert Murray (1935)
- "The Life of Jesus" by Ernest Renan (1935)
- "Selected Works of Voltaire" by Joseph McCabe
- "What are we to do with our lives?" by H. G. Wells
- "Do What You Will" by Aldous Huxley (1936)
- "Clearer Thinking (Logic for Everyman)" by A. E. Mander
- "History of Ancient Philosophy" by A. W. Benn
- "Your Body: How it is built and how it works" by D. Stark Murray
- "What is Man?" by Mark Twain
- "Man and His Universe" by John Langdon-Davies
- "First Principles" by Herbert Spencer
- "Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine
- "This Human Nature" by Charles Duff
- "Dictionary of Scientific Terms as Used in the Various Sciences" by C. M. Beadnell
- "A Book of Good Faith" by Montaigne
- "The Universe of Science" by Hyman Levy
- "Liberty To-day" by C. E. M. Joad
- "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine
- "The Fair Haven" by Samuel Butler (1938)
- "A Candidate for Truth: Passages from Emerson" (1938)
- "A Short History of Women" by John Langdon-Davies
- "Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings" by Henry Maudsley
- "Morals, Manners, and Men" by Havelock Ellis (1939)
- "Pages from a Lawyer's Notebooks" by E. S. P. Haynes
- "An Architect of Nature" - The autobiography of Luther Burbank (1939)
- "Act of God" by F. Tennyson Jesse
- "The Man versus The State" by Herbert Spencer
- "The World As I See It" by Albert Einstein (1940)
- "Jocasta's Crime: An Anthropological Study" by Lord Raglan
- "The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales" by Richard Garnett
- "Kingship" by A. M. Hocart
- "Religion Without Revelation" by Julian Huxley
- "Let the People Think" by Bertrand Russell
- "The Myth of the Mind" by Frank Kenyon
- "The Liberty of Man and Other Essays" by Robert G. Ingersoll
- "Man Makes Himself" by V. Gordon Childe
- "World Revolution and the Future of the West" by W. Friedmann (1942)
- "The Origin of the Kiss and Other Scientific Diversions" by C. M. Beadnell
- "The Bible and Its Background. Volume One." by Archibald Robertson
- Ditto Volume 2.
- "The Conquest of Time" by H. G. Wells (1942)
- "The Gospel of Rationalism" by Charles T. Gorham
- "Life's Unfolding" by Sir Charles Sherrington (1944)
- "An easy Outline of Astronomy" by M. Davidson
- "The God of the Bible" by Evans Bell
- "In Search of the Real Bible" by A. D. Howell Smith
- "Man Studies Life" by G. N. Ridley
- "The Outlines of Mythology" by Lewis Spence
- "Magic and Religion" by Sir James G. Frazer
- "Flight from Conflict" by Laurence Collier
- "Progress and Archaeology" by V. Gordon Childe (1944)
- "The Chemistry of Life" by J. S. D. Bacon
- "Medicine and Mankind" by Arnold Sorsby
- "The Church and Social Progress" by Marjorie Bowen [pen-name of Margaret Gabrielle Long]
- "The Great Mystics" by George Godwin
- "The Religion of Ancient Mexico" by Lewis Spence
- "Geology in the Life of Man" by Duncan Leitch
- "A Century of Freedom" by Kenneth Urwin
- "Jesus: Myth or History?" by Archibald Robertson
- The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays" by W. K. Clifford
- "Human Nature, War and Society" by John Cohen
- "The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice" by L. T. Hobhouse
- "Man: The Verdict of Science" by G. N. Ridley
- "The Distressed Mind" by J. A. C. Brown
- "The Illusion of National Character" by Hamilton Fyfe (1940)
- "Population, Psychology, and Peace" by J. C. Flugel
- "Friar's Lantern" by G. G. Coulton
- "Ideals and Illusions" by L. Susan Stebbing
- "An Outline of the Development of Science" by M. Mansel Davies
- "Head and Hand in Ancient Greece: Four Studies in the Social Relations of Thought" by Benjamin Farrington
- "The Evolution of Society" by J. A. C. Brown
- "Background to Modern Thought" by C. D. Hardie
- "The Holy Heretics: The Story of the Albigensian Crusade" by Edmond Holmes
- "Man His Own Master" by Archibald Robertson
- "Men Without Gods" by Hector Hawton
- "The Earliest Englishman" by Sir Arthur Smith-Woodward
- "Astronomy for Beginners" by Martin Davidson
- "The Search for Health" by D. Stark Murray
- "The Mystery of Anna Berger" by George Godwin
- "Wrestling Jacob" by Marjorie Bowen [Pen-name of Margaret Gabrielle Long]
- "The Origins of Religion" by Lord Raglan
- "The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama" by Lord Raglan
- "The Life of John Knox" by Marjorie Bowen [Pen-name of Margaret Gabrielle Long]
- "The French Revolution" by Archibald Robertson
- "The Art of Thought" by Graham Wallas
- "Literary Style and Music" by Herbert Spencer
- "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin (printed but unpublished)
- "The Science of Heredity" by J. S. D. Bacon
- "The Great Revivalists" by George Godwin
[edit] Bibliography
- Cooke, Bill (2003). The Blasphemy Depot: A Hundred Years of the Rationalist Press Association. London, Rationalist Press Association. ISBN 0-301-00302-5
[edit] External link
- Rationalist Press Association - The Thinker's Library - The Rationalist Press Association's relevant page includes extracts from some volumes.