Witty, digressive table conversation on science, faith, and human nature at a Boston boarding house. Holmes's genial classic of the familiar essay.
Books mentioned in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (25)
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: “I suppose it doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or "Gulliver's Travels" do.”
Vathek by William Beckford: “I recollect, as all do, the story of the Hall of Eblis, in "Vathek," and how each shape, as it lifted its hand from its breast, showed its heart,--a burning coal.”
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: “Did you ever hear of a man's growing lean by the reading of "Romeo and Juliet," or blowing his brains out because Desdemona was maligned?”
Poems by Martin Farquhar Tupper: “The landlady's daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper's Poems.”
Proverbial Philosophy by Martin Farquhar Tupper: “Think of a country which buys eighty thousand copies of the "Proverbial Philosophy," while the author's admiring countrymen have been buying twelve thousand!”
De Senectute by Cicero: “He had been thinking the matter over, he said,--had read Cicero "De Senectute," and made up his mind to meet old age half way.”
Voyages by James Cook: “The young ladies of Otaheite, as you may see in Cook's Voyages, had a sort of crinoline arrangement fully equal in radius to the largest spread of our own lady-baskets.”
The Pleasures of Hope by Thomas Campbell: “If she had but clutched the old Roman and young American weapon, and come to close quarters, there might have been a chance for her; but it would have spoiled the best passage in "The Pleasures of Hope."”
The Christian Year by John Keble: “From the divinity-student came the loveliest English edition of "Keble's Christian Year."”
A Thousand and One Nights: “I suppose it doesn't really deceive people any more than the “Arabian Nights” or “Gulliver's Travels” do.”
The Book of Martyrs by John Foxe: “I remember a poor girl's story in the "Book of Martyrs."”
Disputationes de Sancto Matrimonio by Tomás Sánchez: “in the folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations, “De Sancto Matrimonio.””
An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope: “The old gentleman opposite all at once asked me if I ever read anything better than Pope's "Essay on Man"?”
The Poor Gentleman by George Colman the Younger: “I have played the part of the "Poor Gentleman," before a great many audiences,--more, I trust, than I shall ever face again.”
The Stars and the Earth: “Have you ever read the little book called "The Stars and the Earth?"”
The Whole Duty of Man by Richard Allestree: “Even the poor relative thought she must do something, and sent a copy of "The Whole Duty of Man," bound in very attractive variegated sheepskin, the edges nicely marbled.”
The Improvement of the Mind by Isaac Watts: “I remember only three,—Don Quixote, Tom Jones, and _Watts on the Mind_.”
Bridgewater Treatise by Peter Mark Roget: “If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one of these shells, and a section of it.”
Magnalia Christi Americana by Cotton Mather: “dear old smattering, chattering, would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the “Magnalia”?”
Colloquia by Desiderius Erasmus: “DESIDERII ERASMI COLLOQUIA. Amstelodami. Typis Ludovici Elzevirii. 1650.”
Gil Blas by Alain-René Lesage: “When you read the story of the Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor old man's delusion; but don't forget that the youth was the greater fool of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in turning him out of doors.”
Concilium Tridentinum: “To be sure, he was brought up among the Christian fathers, and learned his alphabet out of a quarto "Concilium Tridentinum."”
Synopsis Criticorum by Matthew Poole: “Do you suppose our dear _didascalos_ over there ever read _Poli Synopsis_, or consulted _Castelli Lexicon_, while he was growing up to their stature?”
Political Poems by Thomas Moore: “The simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I may now say, a happy one; for it has just been shown me that it occurs in a Preface to certain Political Poems of Thomas Moore's published long before my remark was repeated.”
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: “I remember only three,--Don Quixote, Tom Jones, and _Watts on the Mind_.”
Books that mention The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (2)
Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw: “When he finds people chattering harmlessly about Anatole France and Nietzsche, he devastates them with Matthew Arnold, the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, and even Macaulay”
The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner: “Then she asked the clerk for the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table--and was pained to see the admiration her beauty had inspired in him fade out of his face.”