The New Lifetime Reading Plan

Ts'ao Hsьeh-ch'in—The best translation of The Dream of the Red Chamber is by David Hawkes (with John Minford) under its alternative title, The Story of the Stone (5 vols, Penguin). Also good is the version by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, A Dream of Red Mansions (3 vols., Foreign Languages Press, Beijing). The abridged version by C.C. Wang (Anchor) is not very good, though its introduction, by Mark Van Doren, is interesting. The version by Florence and Isabel McHugh (Pantheon) is translated from Franz Kuhn's very good German translation; it is a nice, readable abridgement, but at two removes from the original.

Further reading: Jeanne Knoerle, The Dream of the Red Chamber: A Criticai Study, is a good introduction; Andrew H. Plaks, Archetype and Allegory in The Dream of the Red Chamber is immensely learned and full of fascinating insights.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau—Penguin has J.M. Cohen's excellent translation of the Confessions. Washington Square Press issues in one volume The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.

Further reading: The recommended biography is Jean Guйhenno's Jean-Jacques Rousseau. See also: Peter France, Rousseau: Confessions; Maurice Cranston, Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of Jean- Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1754. For a classic attack on Rousseau, see Irving Babbitt's Rousseau and Romanticism.

Laurence Sterne—Editions of Tristram Shandy: Oxford, Penguin, Riverside, Airmont, Signet, Norton, Evergreen. The Harvard University Press edition also contains A Sentimental

Journey and Selected Sermons and Letters. A Sentimental Journey is available in Everyman and Penguin.

Further reading: Arthur H. Cash, Laurence Sterne (2 vols.). See also Virginia Woolf s essay "The Sentimental Journey" in her Second Common Reader. This also discusses, among other topics, Robinson Crusoe, Swift's Journal to Stella, and the novйis of Thomas Hardy.

James Boswell—Penguin, Modern Library, and Signet (abridged) offer the Life. McGraw-Hill publishes the Boswell Private Papers in many hardbound volumes. Oxford publishes in paperback Boswell's interesting Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.

Further reading: The multivolume Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell is published by McGraw-Hill, edited in the main by Frederick Pottle; some volumes have collaborative editors. On these papers Pottle based his important James Boswell: The Earlier Years, 1740-1769. The first volume of the Yale series, the fascinating BoswelVs London Journal 1762.-1763, is available in paperback. Other studies of this curiously flawed genius: Hesketh Pearson, Johnson and Boswell; Wyndham Lewis, James Boswell: A Short Life; C.B. Tinker, Young Boswell.

Basic Documents in American History, edited by Richard B. Morris, is published by both Krieger and Van Nostrand (Anvil Books).

Further reading: For a wider sampling and discussion of American historical records, see Richard Hofstadters Great Issues in American History (2 vols.). For the Declaration, see Carl Beckers The Declaration of Independence. For the making of the Constitution, see Carl Van Doren, The Great Rehearsal; C.D. Bowen, Miracle at Philadelpia. See also Garry Wills, Inventing America, and Pauline Maier, American Scripture.

The Federalist Papers—Rossiters Federalist Papers is in New American Library. Bantam, Harvard University Press, and Modern Library also have good editions. AHM Publications offers Selections from the Federalist, ed. Henry S. Commager.

Further reading: An excellent compendium is Bernard Bailyn, ed., The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles and Letters during the Struggle over Ratification (Library of America/Viking).