I'm reminded of classics from the middle ages such as The Romance of the Rose, the Faerie Queene, Sidney's Arcadia, Robert De Boron, the Lancelot and the Tristan Cycles and so on. All of which are either out of print or going out of print but were extremely popular a while ago.
I feel that there’s a larger conversation to be had about what is meant by “classics.” Is it something that is continuously enjoyed by readers over generations? Or could it also be a work that is historically important (first of its kind, influential, etc.) and therefore will always have relevance even if it’s not widely read?
Michael, are you gearing up to do a weekly episode called "The Lost Classics"? Something that will showcase out of print books that have some significance.
Great discussion of a topic that seems to be one of those forever-being-pondered subjects. I remember a literature professor talking about this once, and talking about parameters; books that speak to people outside of their time and culture, works that demonstrably influence subsequent work, works that a consensus of acedemia find worthy of study because of structure, content, and so on. Popularity, at least in part, would play a role, but wouldn't be defining. That same professor took us through some works of the 18th and 19th century that were hugely popular at the time, declared "modern classics" in their day that have disappeared and no one has heard of today. But I'm pretty sure that Penguin's inability to sell a book doesn't factor in to the definition.
I think just because people don't read a book, doesn't mean that it isn't a classic. BTW, The Purple Land is available on the Kindle, as well as his other books. An example of a classic author that isn't read as much anymore is Pearl S. Buck.
I do read Jack London, but his science fiction mostly, which is VERY relevant these days. But you're right, I didn't know about his views and few people probably do, whereas everybody has heard about Lovecraft's.
This is a fine video. I think Classics is all a popularity contest. The whims of the time really dictate the Classics of the time. And I think that's fine. Am I unhappy that some great pieces are forgotten? Sure, because I want people to dig what I think is great. But, that's why we need video channels like yours that tells of works we might not know. Or for me, going to a teaming used bookstore is the best way to find the discarded classics. But there are fewer and fewer used book shops.
They are still classics. Penguin just doesn't make money on them. If you walked into a Barnes and Noble today, you may find a very small selection of these classics on the bookshelf. But now, their management is localized to each community. The stores are run independently of each other. If your local store wants to carry a certain classic, they can. There is no cookie cutter form for Barnes and Noble now. They are run as independent stores. I have read The Golden Bowl. It was the first Henry James I read. I knew right away why he was considered a heavy weight. Jack London stories of survival in the wilderness books are not popular today because kids are not allowed to even leave their houses to go play in the woods behind their houses. How could they even survive their back yard? My parents told us to go play and we played in the woods and everywhere and they would call to us to come home and we did. Just yell out the door. That's all it took. Too bad about poor old Jack London.
I agree generally, but London wrote some pretty awful stuff. He believed in the Yellow Menace and literally, in one of his stories, celebrated a scientist who developed a remedy that would simply "kill off" the Chinese and other east Asians. That was a bit much, especially since my first wife and mother of my children was from Thailand.
I don’t think that Penguin publishers said that the books they no longer publish aren’t still classics but simply didn’t sell. Bookstores and publishers are businesses that have to make a profit to keep going and pay their employees. Libraries have to show circulation numbers to justify their existence to the local government to ensure they will receive funding and grants. Titles and authors go in and out of fashion. Project Gutenberg is a great resource for those forgotten books and I hope they keep going strong.
There are also plenty of excellent books that while maybe not really good enough to be called classic are certainly worth a look but will not be reprinted because they are not in the public domain and the author is not so famous that his work is likely to sell regardless of its merit. Extending the term of copyright has condemned a lot of writers to a literary no man's land.
I remember The Prisoner of Zenda being a big deal when I was young (40+) years ago. But I haven't heard anything said about it in decades until you brought it up as part of your book club this year. It is interesting to see what remains a classic, like how we read Shakespeare today, but we don't read Marlowe or Kyd.
Marlowe underwent a revival in the 70's and 80's when the "Marlowe was Shakespeare" crew were beating their drum. Marlowe, at least could go toe to toe with Shakespeare as a poet and as a dramatist, which most other candidates the revisionists offer up simply cannot. But prior to that hardly any of the Elizabethans were read, let alone produced.
Jack London was a favorite of REH, who told Tevis Clyde Smith that London's "Star Rover" went to his head like a fine wine (it's amazing btw). SeaWolf Press prints all London's books (I recommend Before Adam, Sea-Wolf & Iron Heel) and they also print other great books (the 1st 10 Tarzan books are there). London should be read by all serious readers. His writings on ancestoral memories have had a great impact on me. Oh and read the Flashman Papers by George MacDonald Fraser. Would love to see a video on that series Mike. It would def help to put a dent in your 500 book challenge since there are 12 in the series and they're all rip-roaring good fun. No literary hero has had me doubled-over laughin harder than my boy Harry Flashman
Flashman is a great character and George MacDonald Fraser was a great admirer of Alexandre Dumas pere. He even wrote the screenplay for the Musketeer play in the 70's or 80's.
Hello Michael. According to Dr. Samuel Johnson, the test of time which the literary work must pass is around a century. He made that point clear in his LIVES OF THE POETS as well as in his Preface to his edition of Shakespeare's plays. He predicted( according to Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON ) that GULLIVER'S TRAVELS would not survive the test of time, but apparently he was wrong there . I am learning a lot from each and every comment on your excellent video Michael. Greetings from Iraq
It does raise many fascinating (and, perhaps, upsetting) questions. In part, those questions seem, to me, to touch on the potential of our assessment of various integral human values to change: human universal values and realities may not change, but our estimation of each one's importance within a particular cultural or individual moment may change. Great art always seems to deal in the deep truths and values--to uphold them, to question them, to observe, defy, recontextualize. Such art will always be good, whether anyone would be around to hear the trees fall or not. Regarding definitions, though, we might need to rethink our approach. If the indelible impression and high stature of such elemental expressions of humanity are so subject to the practical realities of publication technology and distribution, the undulation of artistic tastes, and the requirements of sound business practices, perhaps it would be best to revert to the academic definition of "classic" or "classical": only those works concurrent with the Greco-Roman world.
I read Jack London a lot. I love his stuff. The Star Rover is really great -- it's all a guy in a straight-jacket tripping through previous lives in his own mind. Amazing book. And Thomas Ligotti should be classic. That guy is AMAZING.
Remember when Dennis Yeats Wheatley was the main man, the top dude, the big cheese? Who reads that guy now? Not many, except for Mark Gatiss. And Jonathan Rigby, of course. And maybe Neil Gaiman...
Hem: "Then there was another thing. He had been reading W. H. Hudson. That sounds like an innocent occupation, but Cohn had read and reread The Purple Land. The Purple Land is a very sinister book if read too late in life. It recounts splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfect English gentleman in an intensely romantic land, the scenery of which is very well described. For a man to take it at thirty-four as a guide-book to what life holds is about as safe as it would be for a man of the same age to enter Wall Street direct from a French convent, equipped with a complete set of the more practical Alger books." Hm. Dangerous books. That notion appeals to me.
Oh, and Classic became a market category, too. There's that aspect we need to consider. It's where sales come in as an important aspect, although it's understandable that publishers needn't be forced to put out books that don't sell enough to pay the freight.
One of Nassim Taleb’s books talks about a study of how long works remain in print. It found that if a book had been in print for x years, there was a 50% chance that it would remain in print for x more years. Here are some questions I’m not sure about: Is the author classic? Or particular works? With Hemingway, I think it’s pretty clear that The Sun Also Rises and the short stories are classics (especially stories like A Clean Well Lighted Place). But what about The Green Hills of Africa, or Islands in the Stream? Same goes with Melville: if Mardi or Pierre is a classic, my guess it’s only because of the tidal pull of Moby Dick. At the extreme, I think it’s safe to say that Aristotle’s Dialogues are no longer classics, no matter how much Cicero admired them (to be considered a classic, the work probably at least exist). I think the best definition of a classic is that it is a work of enduring merit. Endurance is relatively easy to measure, but it may become irrelevant in the internet age. It now seems like everything might be able to endure, and we might one day be talking about the classic RU-vid posts of Roger and that other guy. As for merit, that’s a bit more slippery and culturally defined - so we might use popularity, critical reception, scholarly appreciation, use in schools, or stated influence on other authors as proxies for it. Personally, I hesitate to call anything a classic that was written after 1959 (the year I was born). That’s probably part of my insistence that I’m not old yet, despite what anyone else might say. And a classic book is one whose reputation basically hits you in the face. The idea of an unknown or lost classic seems like an oxymoron to me.
This shifting of interests is sometimes really unfair to amazing authors. I am forever grateful that Alice Walker did the work that she did to reintroduce Zora Neale Hurston to the world after her writing fell out of popularity and into obscurity in the 30’s. Hopefully she never goes out of print again!
When Classics become public domain and turn up in Project Gutenberg they can be read a lot even if not printed. Paper book lovers may never die off completely but what will happen in 50 years?
London: white fang/ call of the wild/ sea wolf all very good, but his best work comes in short stories! This guy put you there. I was always cold while reading London. It's been 50 or more yrs. since I've read anything by him, but I recall his work like it was yesterday. That's what makes a classic.
I didn't even realize Jack London had other books besides White Fang and Call of the Wild lol. Loved the books as a kid. I'm going to have to reread them and then check out some of his other stuff.
Follow the money. If an author falls out of favor and few buy his or her books, the publishers no longer earn the big bucks and into the vault the once well read Classic goes. Always about profit and the bottom line. Thank goodness for used bookstores and thrift shops.
Great topic. I think there are two ways classics change: some books become rarely read or "forgotten classics" but people's assessment of their quality/importance still make them classics. While other works/writers do fall fully out of classic status but I think it has more to do with reassessment of quality or importance (which mostly plays out in academic arguments and general changing tastes). The question that's interesting for each book is which came first: did a book loose popularity and then people reassess it's quality/importance or did it loose popularity after reassessment? I read Jack London and Henry James a lot and love them (but my sense is you are right and both aren't read much by others alas). I can see Jack London becoming less read and eventually loosing classic status if his style of adventure tales loose literary statues. But I think even if Henry James is less read his work will survive based on uniqueness and ambition of style if nothing else. I think most of the time the loss of popularity comes first before the change in status to non classic, it's only a few books where theirs a drastic change in evaluation that drops a book right away. Luckily we also have the reassessed or rediscovered classics as you talked about with Lovecraft for example.
I was talking to a friend about a Robert E. Howard detective story. He mentioned Asian Detectives like Mr. Moto, Charlie Chan, and Mr. Wong. Have your done a video on these type of characters?
I can think of a time when Moby Dick falls off the list of classics. It would be a shame, but it could happen. Who reads James Fenimore Cooper nowadays ?
It's not so much that the writers of the Penny Dreadfuls are (or will be) considered present (or potential future) classic authors...it's the Penny Dreadful itself - its influence, its forms and development - that is the important thing. The influence of the Penny Dreadful as an early genre on future Horror and Supernatural and Thriller writers is the key to the longevity of some of its most important works: Varney the Vampire, The Mysteries of Paris, The String of Pearls, et al. So there.
Terrific topic and insights! Very thoughtful and, of course, stately. But hey! What ever happened to your most dangerous game of the Penguin Classics Random Challenge from last September or so? You almost talked ME into trying that one.
Capitalism should never trump history...but I am not overly surprised. I am a bit mixed on the classics I've read, I've loved some, and hated others but like...they are labelled classics for a reason, and should be historically preserved. For example, I didn't care much for The Lost World but it captures a historical period and thought process that should be preserved/remembered. Maybe a new name would solve this? 'Culturally Relevant'...although that doesn't flow off the tongue as well. A great video, on a super interesting topic!
I'm sure there was an Akkadian writer in 2250 BC who said to his friends, "These clay tablets are classics, they'll never be out of production". Tastes change, texts are lost in part or whole, language evolves and a society moves on. You also raise that philosophical question about the nature of creation: if a text (or painting or sculpture or whatever) no longer has a physical representation, does it still exist? My view is that it does because once a work has been created, it cannot be uncreated. But if no-one can access it then its value to humanity is decidedly lessened. Another aspect of this discussion is adaptation of a text into other media: if a movie based on a near-forgotten book is released, then the source material will likely undergo a renewal of interest to some degree. Just imagine if Mike Flanagan adapted William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land", surely that would generate interest in what is an almost forgotten text (a classic for some but not for others, mainly those who have tried to wade through its archaic language and failed).
Thank you for a very intelligent and thought-provoking video. Our household owns hundreds of books and I do not want them recycled after my death. I tell my descendants that many of these books may no longer be in print in the future, or may exist only in bowdlerized versions (cf current debate about Roald Dahl). A series on out-of-print "classics" would be nice.
Interesting video Michael. I've read The Purple Land and I think BookTime with Ryan has made a video or two about it. I'm slowly ploughing my way through The Mysteries of Paris at the moment and I'm really enjoying it. It's a shame that Penguin don't at least make them available as ebooks or print on demand, still I suppose many of them you can get through Gutenberg or Delphi.
Ah the Purple Land, that could be mistaken for the private estate where Prince had his recording studio. Prisoner of Zenda might have fallen from favour with Penguin Classics but its still available to buy.. probably because its .. a classic. I always considered Classics to be older works, like an antique as opposed to vintage, not necessarily popular modern works but some of them muscled in on the fun Homer and the Brontes were having. I guess if you can't justify another print run then its retire to the vault to be dusted off when the world remembers you enough to make a shilling or two.
I read a bunch of Jack London last year on Kindle. I like his work especially his short story collections. Eventually I will buy all of his books in print.
Interesting topic. I wonder if there is a rough number of classics that society can deal with and if when new books come in they push some out? It feels like having too many books labelled as “classic” risks devaluing the term. In my defence, I never said W&P wasn’t a classic, just that it was boring AF 😂
I enjoyed your episode. A classic for me is not dependent on time or some publisher's estimated consensus of what is classic. Literature tends to speak for itself.
We hope that abandoned classics will appear on Project Gutenberg. I checked: _The Purple Land_ is available on Project Gutenberg. Lord Dunsany is on Project Gutenberg. Henry James is available in Library of America (and Project Gutenberg). I would think Hemingway is "safe". John O'Hara is helped by his novels being made into films. Jack London was a popular leftist radical, which explains some of his popularity today. I wish, I hope, that William Faulkner would find his way to the vault, but I'm not holding my breath.
Thomas Ligotti I feel, deserves his place in the "Classic" pantheon, and I'm fairly sure he will be celebrated a lot more decades from now, he is the closest America has got to a modern Kafka albeit with a Lovecraft twist. There is something about his work that sticks in mind for months after I've read him.
Until this video, I never realized I wanted to read about women in captivity. Too bad it's out of print! As always, nice tie; I really should get me one of those.
I think ALL authors will be “pruned” and only one or two works being accounted “true classics”. For instance I used to LOVE John Buchan but I find his anti-red rhetoric and imperial gung-ho ness impossible these days. I don’t think anything will dethrone Thirty Nine Steps! But the rest? I just re-read Sickheart River which I would account a classic and still VERY readable, but I think it was never accounted a classic.. and never forget in the Nineties Penguin deleted ALL of Plato “cos it didn’t sell enough”!!! Interesting talk.
O'Hara was very popular in the United States in the 50]s but for some reason American Critics didn't like him, possibly because he was successful. Recently, American critics seemed to have embraced him and his reputation is rising. You cannot trust the critics.
Of course jack London is still classic. he was on Star Trek!!! He was quite a diverse writer though. he has some work of science fiction or post-apocalypse stuff that I seem to feel has had some renewed interest in recent years, due to the popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction and dystopias. I'm thinking of The Iron heel and that novella where most of the world's population dies of a plague -- forget the name now.
Regarding Eugene Sue(1804-1857). I don't know why you think Sue lacked literary merit. He was the first, and arguably the best, practitioner of the serialized novel. His plots were sensational, but they work. He is considered one of the ablest depicters of character and I think that is true. His characters are very believable. He depicts memorable characters from every social level, but especially the lower classes. He was very radical for his time--an open, ardent socialist. He was also anticlerical in The Wandering Jew. In his personal life, a bit of a dandy. His books sold very well. He was more popular than Dumas. Publication of his works in English seems to have been deliberately sabotaged. During the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century he continued to be published in English but only because some socialist group subsidized their publication. I translated the play made from The Mysteries of Paris by Goubaux and Beudin who did a wonderful job with it. It's a monumental melodrama.
You're spot on with the London v Lovecraft comparison, and Robert E Howard. John O'hara - who's that ? 🤭 Lord Dunsany's problem is his name. The publishing house needs to change it up a bit. Coolio Dunsany - now that would sell much better 😉 What can I say I'm an ideas man.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 I suggest L’Assommoir (1877) or La Bête Humaine (1890). Both are available in Oxford World Classic editions and of course, Penguins. Zola doesn't skimp on realism or serious topics. Don't expect a happy ending. I got on a Zola kick a few years ago and quickly ran through 10. Easily one of the best writers of the 19th Century.
Penguin published books because they were classics. They did not make those books classics. They don't stop being classics because Penguin stop publishing them. In this modern age of print on demand I don't know what's stopping Penguin for keeping the slow sellers in print that way. Also, if they know full well that Oxford have it in print, and it's not a big seller, they may just be happy to let Oxford have it to themselves. One should also take into account that Penguin Random House are not the same as Penguin. They were bought out by big business, and big business cares a lot more about profit than they do historical, or literary importance. As to John O'Hara, I confess I'd never even heard of him before I saw either you, or Steve Donoghue mention him in videos. I'm a huge fan of Jack London, albeit I haven't read him In decades. To some extent. I don't think anyone should be considered a classic until they've been dead for at least 50 years! 😉
I think it may have been best if the definition of classics was books written during the classic period i.e. ancient Greece and Roman. Otherwise a classic is too ill define of a term. The Disney corporation calls every movie they make a classic (and a lot of people buy it despite the House of the Mouse producing a lot of crap over the years.) It's just to nebulous a term. Some classics are really polarizing like The Great Gatsby which is really a love it or hate it book. The popularity of certain writers changes overtime. Shakespeare's plays were popular with the masses but looked down upon by the elites. (All plays were by many in the Elizabethean Age.) Dickens was hated by many in the early 20th century. This has all changed. Shame about London. He was a really good writer.
@@frankmorlock9134 Wikipedia has heard of Nonnus and his great epic poem. Whether Wiki can be trusted to always tell the truth about a subject is another matter...
Hello! Hudson's The Purple Land is still in print in Argentina and Spain as La tierra purpúrea, but I wouldn't say it's considered a classic, just read with the respect given to a work published more than 100 years ago 🤔
For public domain 'classic' works, reprint houses have to compete with online resources, which are much cheaper, less environmentally damaging, and more convenient for many people. (Especially those who are not yet convinced that e-goblins are being sent round the intertubes at round at night to secretly edit our ebooks. 🙂) And now with AI resources you can have a chat with a bot about the book afterwards, or use it it to check unfamiliar words and phrases; so the added value elements in traditionally published books are becoming irrelevant too.
Cursor Effect, is what I call this. At any given time, the reading public, or society at large, has room for only so much stuff. Once at capacity - yes, it varies person to person, sure - any new item inevitably bumps out an older one. Hence, once-classics becoming OOP classics, ex classics, forgotten classics. Further exacerbating this corrosion of collective memory, some books remain in the classic, or popular, or discussed, or remembered zones of mind only so long as they remain pertinent to a given society. Some books have perennial appeal, others fall from grace and favor. Some of those latter can and will be rediscovered. Resurgence of interest leads to swelling popularity and, as often, swollen faces due to the beating taken from retro-critics bent on suppressing such round-file upstarts. How dare they un-crumple themselves? Cursor moves along, highlighting only so many at a time, new ones entering, old ones shoved out the back to bounce on history's tarmac. C'est la biblio-vie.
That's a good point. I once read a study that approached politics from a mental circuit point of view. Most people, even the smartest, can only keep a maximum of 16 things on their mind at one time. More than that and it's an overload both for individuals and society. a new hot topic displaces an old one. Remember Julius Caesar, who was a bit of a show off, dictating letters to several scribes at once. (I believe the number was around 16, but I decided to check and most sources say 2 or 4. I'm sure I read a much higher number. ) Also, for example in designing dials for pilots to check in planes, the number is usually limited.
I don't see why not. Whatever its literary merit, it is massively culturally significant (emerging from fanfic to become the fastest selling paperback ever in the UK) and fostering the mainstream publication of erotic fiction. In an increasingly censorious literary climate '50 Shades' is a beacon of hope for the future of free expression!
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 As a fiction fan you will be interested in this tidbit. About 20 years ago a major university literature department (Maybe University of Virginia?) did a research project to determine who, for name recognition, was the best known character in fiction in the English language. It was Sherlock Holmes. I am not surprised. It is very difficult to find anyone over the age of 12 who has not at least heard of S. H.
Is Penguin weeding their garden with Round-Up?? And is Jack London relevant....? I am currently reading "The Iron Heel" which I had never heard of until recently on booktube. Hmm... he's writing about how fascism might take hold in the US. Relevant?? I wonder.
This fighting for their position to remain a "classic" sounds like a soccer/futball league. You do well enough that you get promoted to the big league, but if you do poorly in the big league, you go down a level. To me, a classic is based on the age of the book (at least 50 years), its popularity, and its technical prowess. Thanks for the video.
Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are "Classics". Howard, London, and Lovecraft are classic writers in my view. I feel you should not discount any writer for his/her views. Good books are good books.
In the end like lots of things it is all subjective, pretty much. I need to dig up what I have from Thomas Ligotti. I bought a number of things in the 90's because authors were name dropping him in magazine interviews but actually never read any of them. I need to rectify that one day. Jack London was forced on me way to much from probably 4th to 8th grade. We seemed to take some long portions of the school year to cover him. Had various school field trips to his museum in Glen Ellen. His name is all over the San Francisco bay area and I see his face (rather body in a swim garment at that) just about everyday because of a billboard advertising for supposedly a place that was among his favorites in the area. Never knew his views though. They didn't cover that.
Really like your channel! I apologize in advance for being this guy (the petty and irritating commenter), but it may be better to look directly at us, as opposed to the camera
Schools and universities are also responsible for putting a lot of good books and authors in the shade. When books are on the curriculum, that means 5hey are probably available to buy, they are being read and are out there in the public arena. I recently dragged out my copy of Thucydides which I studied at school. I suppose its on Gutenberg but anyone younger than me will never be taught Thucydides.
I'm surprised an attempt hasn't been made to remove Lovecraft from the book shops considering the current political and cultural climate of the English speaking world.
I’m surprised to see something from the 1980s considered a classic. I thinks that’s too close to our time. Should their be a cut off date for a classic? I always considered Howard and Lovecraft’s time, the 30s and even the 40s to be that cut off period. So anything before the 1950s that’s good can be considered a classic. I usually think if a classic to be before around or before my grandparents time.
Agree like 1950's is pushing it for me but from that and before I would considered classics. When someone did a video on classics they read in a month and said The Hand Maid's Tale and Virgin Suicides. I yelled at the screen those are not classics.
Enjoyable review. I don't think I will ever read any more Henry James after The Turn of the Screw. Maybe a few short stories. I read lots of old fantastic fiction and some new stuff, but old "classics?" Probably will never read Silas Marner or Elmer Gantry. I am reading Moby Dick and Earth Abides right now. I love Dickens and Twain. I guess a classic is a matter of individual taste but I don't think that is the true intent of the term. Befuddling. Ran into a DVD cover today: Where the Crawdads Sing. Intriguing premise. My sister told me to read the book. In the movie, the hillbilly girl who raises herself in a swamp looks like The Devil Wears Prada instead of a hillbilly girl who raises herself in a swamp. I will check out the book first.
You approached the answer at one point. It's all moot. Once the fascist "sensitivity readers" get done, all the classics will cease to exist anyway, replaced by wan and idiotic reflections of what they once were. They've moved on to Agatha Christie now -- huzzah. All hail the sensitivity readers! Thank you for saving us! They're coming for REH, Michael.
I’m just way, way behind on the comments due to time constraints. Sorry about that. I’ve been sadly absent from Discord as well. I barely got this video out!
