Adams's ironic third-person memoir of an old-world education failing to fit the age of dynamos and science. A landmark of American autobiography.
Books mentioned in The Education of Henry Adams (24)
The Talisman by Walter Scott: “…were passed in summer lying on a musty heap of Congressional Documents in the old farmhouse at Quincy, reading "Quentin Durward," "Ivanhoe," and "The Talisman," and raiding the garden at intervals for peaches and pears.”
Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: “…boy's education were passed in summer lying on a musty heap of Congressional Documents in the old farmhouse at Quincy, reading "Quentin Durward," "Ivanhoe," and "The Talisman," and raiding the garden at intervals for peaches and pears.”
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: “Like Catherine Olney in "Northanger Abbey," he yearned for nothing so keenly as to feel at home in a thirteenth-century Abbey, unless it were to haunt a fifteenth-century Prior's House, and both these joys were his at Wenlock.”
Capital by Karl Marx: “He could not afterwards remember to have heard the name of Karl Marx mentioned, or the title of "Capital."”
Quentin Durward by Walter Scott: “…happiest hours of the boy's education were passed in summer lying on a musty heap of Congressional Documents in the old farmhouse at Quincy, reading "Quentin Durward," "Ivanhoe," and "The Talisman," and raiding the garden at intervals for peaches and pears.”
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding: “He liked her refined figure; her gentle voice and manner; her vague effect of not belonging there, but to Washington or to Europe, like her furniture, and writing-desk with little glass doors above and little eighteenth-century volumes in old binding, labelled "Peregrine Pickle" or "Tom Jones" or "Hannah More."”
Diary of John Quincy Adams by John Quincy Adams: “Hay took to studying the "Diary" of John Quincy Adams eighty years before”
Atalanta in Calydon by Algernon Charles Swinburne: “If he had sinned and doubted at all, he wholly repented and did penance before "Atalanta in Calydon," and would have offered Swinburne a solemn worship as Milnes's female offered Hugo, if it would have pleased the poet.”
Autobiography by Giuseppe Garibaldi: “Murray's Handbook had the grace to quote this passage from Gibbon's "Autobiography," which led Adams more than once to sit at sunset on the steps of the Church of Santa Maria di Ara Coeli, curiously wondering that not an inch had been gained by Gibbon--or all the historians since--towards explaining the Fall.”
Novanglus and Massachusettensis by John Adams and Daniel Leonard: “In after years his father sometimes complained that, as a reader of Novanglus and Massachusettensis, Henry had shown very little consciousness of punctuation; but the boy regarded this part of school life only as a warning, if he ever grew up to write dull discussions in the newspapers, to try to…”
Recollections and Suggestions by John Russell: “Then he pleaded guilty to criminal negligence, and said in his "Recollections":--"I assent entirely to the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice of England”
The Grammar of Science by Karl Pearson: “By chance it happened that Raphael Pumpelly helped the winds; for, being in Washington on his way to Central Asia he fell to talking with Adams about these matters, and said that Willard Gibbs thought he got most help from a book called the "Grammar of Science," by Karl Pearson.”
Queen Rosamond by Algernon Charles Swinburne: “Stirling of Keir wanted to take with him to his chamber a copy of "Queen Rosamund," the only volume Swinburne had then published”
The Initials by Baroness Tautphoeus: “In those days, "The Initials" was a new book.”
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man by Charles Lyell: “he seized with greediness the new volume on the "Antiquity of Man" which Sir Charles Lyell published in 1863 in order to support Darwin by wrecking the Garden of Eden.”
Concepts of Modern Physics by J. B. Stallo: “put into Adams's hands the "Concepts of Modern Science," a volume by Judge Stallo, which had been treated for a dozen years by the schools with a conspiracy of silence”
The Greville Memoirs by Charles Greville: “He proved his courage afterwards by publishing the "Greville Memoirs," braving the displeasure of the Queen.”
The Biglow Papers by James Russell Lowell: “especially when it was satirical, like the speeches of Horace Mann and the "Epistles" of "Hosea Biglow," with great delight to the youth.”
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: “Adams was content to read Darwin, especially his "Origin of Species" and his "Voyage of the Beagle."”
Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett: “He liked her refined figure; her gentle voice and manner; her vague effect of not belonging there, but to Washington or to Europe, like her furniture, and writing-desk with little glass doors above and little eighteenth-century volumes in old binding, labelled "Peregrine Pickle" or "Tom Jones" or "Hannah More."”
Poems and Ballads by Algernon Charles Swinburne: “When the "Poems and Ballads" came out, and met their great success and scandal, he sought one of the first copies from Moxon.”
The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: “Adams was content to read Darwin, especially his "Origin of Species" and his "Voyage of the Beagle."”
The New York Gold Conspiracy by Henry Adams: “He had finished his New York "Gold Conspiracy," which he meant for his friend Henry Reeve and the Edinburgh Review.”
The Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon: “though one should have known the "Advancement of Science" as well as one knew the "Comedy of Errors," the literary knowledge counted for nothing”