ABSTRACT
Some years ago, about the time when my old nurse was beginning to think less highly of herself than she ought to have thought, because she could neither read nor write, I remember that a grave and very learned member of the English nobility set himself the arduous task of deciding which were the hundred best books. Whether he succeeded to his satisfaction or not I do not know, but in due time The Hundred Best Books were published. It became my ambition to acquire them so that I might at least possess foundations for an educated mind, but this ambition went the way of many another, and now I do not even remember the names of the hundred best books. I recall them only to wonder whether they included The Works of William Blake.
