10 Best Books I Have Read
(Author of This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, etc.)—F. Scott Fitzgerald
Samuel Butler's Note Books. The mind and heart of my favorite Victorian.
The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (H. L. Mencken). A keen, hard intelligence interpreting the Great Modern Philosopher.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce). Because James Joyce is to be the most profound literary influence in the next fifty years.
Zuleika Dobson (Max Beerbohm). For the sheer delight of its exquisite snobbery.
The Mysterious Stranger (Mark Twain). Mark Twain in his most sincere mood. A book and a startling revelation.
Nostromo (Joseph Conrad). The great novel of the past fifty years, as Ulysses is the great novel of the future.
Vanity Fair (Thackeray). No explanation required.
The Oxford Book of English Verse. This seems to me a better collection than Palgrave's.
Thais (Anatole France). The great book of the man who is Wells and Shaw together.
Seventeen (Booth Tarkington). The funniest book I've ever read.—
Published in Jersey City Evening Journal newspaper (24 April 1923).
Not illustrated.