DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE 1952 EDITION AND 1990 EDITION OF GBWW
[ALL the following statistics include ONLY PRE-20th century Great Books from Homer through Freud.]
Total number of authors in the 1952 edition: 73. Total number of authors in the 1990 edition: 81
Four authors deleted from the old edition in preparing the new 1990 edition:
Apollonius of Perga, On Conic Sections. Henry Fielding, Tom Jones. Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy. Jean Baptiste Fourier, Analytical Theory of Heat.
Fourteen authors added to 1990 edition:
Desiderius Erasmus, Praise of Folly; John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion; Moliere, Comedies; Racine, Tragedies (Berenice, Phaedra); Voltaire, Candide; Jane Austen, Emma; Balzac, Cousin Bette; Tocqueville, Democracy in America; Dickens, Little Dorrit; George Eliot, Middlemarch; Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling; Ibsen, Plays; Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Nieztsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
BELOW are curious statistics on the 1990 GBWW. They are based not on the books themselves, but on the authors. Some authors were counted in 2 subject categories based on their Great Books. American State Papers and Federalist were counted as two books, each with one 'collective' author. In reality, of the 85 articles in the Federalist, Hamilton wrote 56, Madison 26, and Jay 5. Madison wrote the two most famous articles, numbers 10 and 51. The Bible, being a unique and problematic case, is not included in this analysis. All compilation of page numbers for each author are approximate and represents all of their Great works; in most, but not all cases, indices, maps, tables of contents, and editorial endnotes are not included in the page counts.
NATIONAL/LINGUISTIC BACKGROUNDS OF THE 84 AUTHORS IN THE 1990 GBWW
NUMBER OF GREEK AUTHORS: 18 (21%).
4 PHILOSOPHERS: Plato (814 pp.), Aristotle (2 vols: 1,425 pp.), Epictetus (132 pp.), Plotinus (378 pp). 6 ARTISTS: Homer (541 pp.), Aeschylus (103 pp.), Sophocles (143 pp.), Euripides (383 pp.), Aristophanes (255 pp.), Plutarch (876 pp.). 3 SOCIAL SCIENTISTS: Herodotus (314 pp.), Thucydides (244 pp.), Plutarch. 7 SCIENTISTS: Hippocrates (339 pp.), Aristotle, Euclid (396 pp.), Archimedes (193 pp.), Nicomachus (37 pp.), Ptolemy (478 pp.), Galen (116 pp.).
Total number of pages for all Greeks: 7,167 pp. (23% [of a total of 30,594 pp.]).
NUMBER OF ROMAN AUTHORS: 5 (6%).
3 PHILOSOPHERS: Lucretius (91 pp.), Marcus Aurelius (55 pp.), St. Augustine (784 pp.) 1 ARTIST: Virgil (321 pp.). 1 SOCIAL SCIENTIST: Tacitus (313 pp. w/index). 0 SCIENTISTS.
[Interesting Note: 4 out of the 5 Roman authors were heavily influenced or inspired by Greek literature and philosophy. Lucretius derived his philosophy from Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius from the Stoics (he also wrote in Greek], St. Augustine from the Neoplatonists; and Virgil was inspired by Homer.]
Total number of pages for all Romans: 1,564 pp. (5%).
ONE MEDIEVAL SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHER: Aquinas (an Italian), (2 vols: 1,910 pp. [6%]).
NUMBER OF ANGLO-AMERICAN AUTHORS: 26 (31%).
5 PHILOSOPHERS: Bacon (212 pp.), Hobbes (328 pp.), Locke (393 pp.), Berkeley (40 pp.), Hume (58 pp.). 9 ARTISTS: Chaucer (288 pp.), Shakespare (2 vols: 1,235 pp.), Milton (412 pp.), Swift (184 pp.), Austen (197 pp.), Eliot (395 pp.), Dickens (420 pp.), Melville (266 pp.), Twain (125 pp.). 7 SOCIAL SCIENTISTS: Hobbes, Adam Smith (471 pp.), Gibbon (2 vols: 1,695 pp. w/Gibbon's notes), ASP (16 pp.), Federalist (230 pp.), Mill (200 pp.), Boswell (587 pp.). 6 SCIENTISTS: Gilbert (121 pp.), Harvey (220 pp.), Newton (544 pp.), Faraday (603 pp.), Darwin (659 pp. w/index), James (897 pp.).
Total number of pages for all Anglo-Americans: 10,695 (35%).
NUMBER OF FRENCH AUTHORS: 14 (17%)
4 PHILOSOPHERS: Calvin - a theologian (455 pp.), Montaigne (538 pp.), Descartes (347 pp. w/objections), Pascal (479 pp.). 7 ARTISTS: Rabelais (312 pp.), Montaigne, Moliere (274 pp.), Racine (80 pp.), Voltaire (58 pp.), Diderot (48 pp.), Balzac (203 pp.). 3 SOCIAL SCIENTISTS: Montesquieu (315 pp.), Rousseau (112 pp.), Tocqueville (411 pp.). 3 SCIENTISTS: Descartes, Pascal, Lavoisier (133 pp.).
Total number of pages for all French authors: 3,765 (12%).
NUMBER OF GERMAN AUTHORS: 8 (9.5%).
3 philosophers: Kant (613 pp.), Hegel (386 pp.), Nieztsche (82 pp.). 1 Artist: Goethe (162 pp.). 2 social scientists: Marx & Engels (together, 434 pp.). 2 scientists: Kepler (240 pp.), Freud (884 pp.).
Total pages for all Germans: 2,801 (9%).
THREE ITALIANS: 1 artist (Dante [131 pp.]); 1 social scientist (Machiavelli [37 pp.]); 1 scientist (Galileo [130 pp.]). Total pages for all Italians: 298 (.97%).
TWO DANES: Erasmus (artist? [42 pp.]); 1 philosopher (Kierkegaard [51 pp.]). Total pages for Danes: 93 (.3%).
TWO DUTCH: 1 philosopher (Spinoza [108 pp.]); 1 scientist (Huygens [68 pp.]). Total pages for Dutch: 176 (.57%).
TWO RUSSIANS: 2 artists (Dostoyevsky [431 pp.], Tolstoy [696 pp.]). Total pages for Russians: 1,127 (4%).
ONE SPANIARD: 1 artist (Cervantes): 502 pp. (1.6%).
ONE POLE: 1 scientist (Copernicus): 342 pp. (1.1%)
ONE NORWEGIAN: 1 artist (Ibsen): 154 pp. (.5%).
DISTRIBUTION OF 84 AUTHORS ACCORDING HISTORICAL EPOCHS
Before 500 A.D. : 23 (27%)
500 to 1500 A.D. : 3 ([3.5%] Aquinas, Dante, Chaucer)
1500 to the Present: 58 (69 %)
BREAKDOWN ACCORDING TO AUTHORS' SUBJECTS
Number of philosophers in entire set: 22
Number of artists: 30
Number of social scientists: 17
Number of scientists: 21
RANKING OF MOST PROLIFIC AUTHORS WITHIN THE GBWW SET BY NUMBER OF PAGES
1. Aquinas (1,910 pp.) 2. Gibbon (1,695 pp.) 3. Aristotle (1,425 pp.) 4. Shakespeare (1,235 pp.) 5. James (897 pp.) 6. Freud (884 pp.) 7. Plutarch (876 pp.) 8. Plato (814 pp.) 9. St. Augustine (784 pp.) 10. Tolstoy (696 pp.)
http://cafes.mirror.org/gbcafe2.cgi?read=11062
Posted by Zaheer Samee on Monday, 1 February 1999