The New Lifetime Reading Plan

Further reading: The definitive life is Gordon S. Haight's George Eliot: A Biography. Also excellent is Rosemary Ashton's recent George Eliot. For acute criticism, see Joan Bennett, George Eliot: Her Mind and Her Art; Barbara Hardy, The Novйis of George Eliot: A Study in Form. See also: R.T. Jones, George Eliot; Marghanita Laski, George Eliot and Her World; Lawrence and Elizabeth Hanson, Marian Evans and George Eliot. Other views of George Eliot may be found in Virginia Woolfs The Common Reader, F.R. Leavis's The Great Tradition, David Cecil's Victorian Novelists, and Henry James's Partial Portraits. Gillian Beer, George Eliot, offers an interesting feminist approach.

Walt Whitman—Riverside gives you the Complete Poetry and Selected Prose. Penguin has a good Portable Whitman. Leaves of Grass is available from many publishers. The Library of America has a Poetry and Prose volume.

Further reading: David S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman s America; Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer, a good standard biography. Other good book-length treatments: Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman: A Life; H.S. Canby, Walt Whitman: An American; Emory Holloway, Whitman: An Interpretation in Narrative. See also: Richard Chase, Walt Whitman; D.H. Lawrence, "Whitman," in Studies in Classic American Literature; Paul Zweig, Walt Whitman: The Making ofthe Poet.

Gustave Flaubert—The Modern Library edition of Madame Bovary, tr. Francis Steegmuller, is preferred. Other acceptable ver­sions: Bantam, Airmont, Riverside, Signet, Penguin. There is also a Penguin edition of Three Tales, tr. Robert Baldick. See also Sallambo and Flaubert in Egypt, both tr. Steegmuller, both Penguin.

Further reading: An adequate biography in English is P. Spencers Flaubert. A Biography. Enid Starkie's Flaubert: The Making of the Master and Francis Steegmullers Flaubert and Madame Bovary are good studies. See also B.F. Bart's Flaubert. University of Chicago Press has published Jean-Paul Sartre's bril- liant but idiosyncratic and unfinished The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert, 1821-185-/.

Feodor Mekhailovich Dostoyevsky—Crime and Punishment: Oxford, Norton, Bantam, Eveiyman, Modern Library (Garnett tr.), Signet, Vintage, Airmont, Penguin (Magarshack tr.), Viking (McDuff tr.). The Brothers Karamozov: Penguin (2 vols.), Airmont, Vintage, Bantam, Modern Library (Garnett tr.). Try also The Idiot: Signet, Penguin.

Further reading: R. Hingley, Dostoyevsky: His Life and Work; Henri Troyat, Firebrand: The Life of Dostoevsky; E.H. Carr, Dostoevsky; Avrahm Yarmolinsky, Dostoevsky, His Life and Art. Perhaps the best treatment: Janko Lavrin, Dostoevsky.

Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy—War and Peace: Penguin (2 vols.), Norton (annotated), Signet, Washington Sq. Press (abridged). Anna Karenina, some good editions: Penguin, Norton, Modern Library, Oxford U. Press. Perennial has Great Short Works and Penguin The Portable Tolstoy.

Further reading: Perhaps the most readable life is Henri Troyafs Tolstoy. The standard biography is Aylmer Maude's The Life of Tolstoy (2 vols.). For shorter biographies, see Janko Lavrin, Tolstoy: An Approach; Ernest Simmons, Leo Tolstoy; and Martine de Courcel, Tolstoy: The Ultimate Reconciliation. Special interpre- tations of high interest: D.S. Merezhkovski, Tolstoi as Man and Artist; Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Toktoy's View of History; George Steiner, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism; Edward Crankshaw, Tolstoy: The Making of a Novelist; Alexandra Tolstoy, Tolstoy: A Life of My Father.