Twenty Classics for Boys

From Homer to the Bible to the Knights of the Roundtable

Achilles removing Patroculs’ body from the battlefield in the Trojan War.

Here is a list (mostly) of the classical classics, the stories of Ancient Greece and Rome, with a few medieval stories and one eastern one thrown in to spice up the list. I have also included the Bible, which itself, in addition to being Holy Writ, is an ancient text. They are the stories that were widely read in schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but were slowly dropped as the interest in academic learning was displaced by social and political goals in schools. Many of them are, as indicated available from my publisher, Memoria Press. But all of them can be found by searching the two best used book websites: http://used.addall.com/ and bookfinder.com. Enjoy

• The Golden Children’s Bible (available from Memoria Press)

• D’Aulaire’s Greek Mythology (available from Memoria Press)

• Aesop’s Fables for Children, Milo Winter (available from Memoria Press)

• Rainbow Fairy Books, Andrew Lang

• Fifty Famous Stories Retold & Fifty Famous People, James Baldwin

• The Wonder Book & Tanglewood Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Plutarch’s Lives for Boys and Girls, W. H. Weston

• The Trojan War, Olivia Coolidge (available from Memoria Press)

• The Heroes, by Charles Kingsley, or The Golden Fleece, by Padraic Colum

• The Adventures of Robin Hood, Roger Lancelyn Green (available from Memoria Press), or The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (advanced)

• King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, by Roger Lancelyn Green (available from Memoria Press), or The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, by Howard Pyle (advanced)

• Arabian Knights, Andrew Lang

• Stories of the East from Heroditus, Alfred J. Church

• Stories from the Greek Tragedians, Alfred J. Church

• The Iliad for Boys and Girls, Alfred J. Church, or the more advanced actual text, The Iliad, Homer (trans. Samuel Butler) (available from Memoria Press)

• The Odyssey for Boys and Girls, Alfred J. Church, or the more advanced actual text, the Odyssey, Homer (trans. Samuel Butler) (available from Memoria Press)

• Aeneid for Boys and Girls, Alfred J. Church, or the more advanced actual text, The Aeneid, Virgil, (trans. David West) (available from Memoria Press)

• Stories from Livy, Alfred J. Church

• Tales From Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb