Adam Luke Gowans Bibliography

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LectorRecitator
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ADAM LUKE GOWANS (1871–1958)

The Hundred Best Poems (Lyrical) In The English Language: Second Series (1904)

📖 147 pages long.

ℹ️ "I HAVE been deeply gratified by the large circulation which the first series of 'Hundred Best Poems (Lyrical)' has already attained in less than twelve months from its publication, and am confident, from the many letters of thanks and appreciation which have reached me, that the present series is already assured of a warm welcome.

This second collection, while not containing such supremely great lyrics of the language as does the first, draws its riches, nevertheless, from a treasure-house which is still very far from being exhausted, and will, I believe, prove as interesting to lovers of the best poetry as the other ; giving prominence, as it does, to many splendid poems, which, to some extent because of the operation of the law of copyright, are not yet as universally familiar as they will, I believe, in time become."
(Prefatory Note)

https://archive.org/details/hundredbestpoems00gowaiala/page/n7/mode/2up

The Tower Of Nesle: A Play In Five Acts And In Nine Tableaux (1906) · Frédéric Gaillardet (1808–1882) & Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870)

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001794988

The Hundred Best Blank Verse Passages In The English Language (1907/11)

📖 119 pages long.

ℹ️ "IT is in blank verse that the English language, unfettered by the laws of rhyme and guided by the master hands of Shakespeare and of Milton, has attained its highest flights. Some of the immortal passages from the Shakespearean tragedies are to English ears at once the sweetest and the sublimest ever written.

It has seemed to me, therefore, that a collection of blank verse passages of sustained excellence would be appreciated by many of those who have liked the previous volumes of this series, especially as I am not aware of the existence of any precisely similar selection. I have made it a condition of admission that such passages should be of not less than ten lines in length.

I believe that this little book contains nothing that is not the very flower and quintessence of poetry; nothing that does not, once read with a seeing eye, imprint itself on the memory for ever after ; nothing that should not be known by heart to every lover of his country's literature."
(Prefatory Note)

https://archive.org/details/hundredbestblank00gowauoft/page/n5/mode/2up

A Treasury Of English Verse (1907)

ℹ️ "It is the hope of the compiler that this volume of poetry will become a favourite House-book, as the Germans call it, a book in which every member of the family will find some verses he loves, a book containing poems that will be read aloud by parents to children, by lover to lass, by friend to friend. It follows the course of life from its beginning to its end, showing its ups and downs as they have been reflected in the mirrors that great poets have held up to it. Nothing that is not good literature finds a place here; the book is intended to stimulate a taste for the best poetry in those who have never learned to love it and to revive it in those who have always loved it but have neglected it awhile." (Preface)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924013288562/page/n5/mode/2up

Lyric Masterpieces By Living Authors (1908)

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100170549

Characteristic Passages From The Hundred Best English Prose-Writers (1910)

📖 240 pages long. Divided into short sections.

ℹ️ "I have never seen anything just like the little prose anthology which I now lay before lovers of good writing in general and teachers of English literature in particular. I believe that it supplies a long-felt want. Many handbooks contain no specimens whatever of the authors whose works and lives they describe, whereas the characteristics of their styles can be far more easily impressed upon the student's mind by the reading of actual passages from the writings cited, and by the teacher's remarks upon them, than by any amount of description. It is remarkable how plainly the prevailing qualities of an author reveal themselves in a very short passage, and the extracts given in the present volume are not too short to convey a clear idea of the styles of their writers.

Besides being characteristic, each passage is also interesting—either because of its descriptive or narrative merit, or from what it reveals of its author's character, or opinions, or times. The teacher will be able to point out, for instance, not only how the leading qualities of the style of the Decline and Fall appear in Gibbon's account of his early love-affair, but also how in these two pages he lays bare the worldliness of his nature. Extracts such as those from Bunyan, Butler, or Fielding will enable him to inculcate ethical and religious principles in a very striking manner. Others will suggest useful lessons in history, biography, politics, or philosophy. A solecism may even be discovered occasionally, such as that in the extract from Kinglake (corrected in later editions), and may serve to point a moral.

In order that specimens of as many celebrated authors as possible who are principally known as prose-writers might be included, I found it necessary to adopt certain arbitrary rules of selection, I therefore omitted, in the first place, old dramatists who wrote mainly in blank verse, making exceptions in the case of Shakespeare and Jonson, and in the second place, I excluded all translations, giving a place to the " Morte d' Arthur " as being an original work, though founded on French legends."
(Prefatory Note)

https://archive.org/details/characteristicpa00gowa/page/n9/mode/2up

The Twelve Best Tales By English Writers (1911)

ℹ️ "WHEN it is explained that this selection is restricted to the work of authors no longer living and to stories not exceeding 15,000 words in length, it is evident to any one who has a moderate acquaintance with English literature that the field of selection is immensely narrowed and the title chosen for the volume not nearly so presumptuous as it may at first sight seem. For the short story was strangely neglected by the great English prose-writers before the beginning of last century. Why this should have been so when they had the examples of Boccaccio's "Decameron" and Cervantes's "Exemplary Novels" before them, it is difficult to say; at any rate, neither Fielding nor Swift, neither Steele nor Addison, attempted to emulate those great story-tellers, and we find no thoroughly satisfactory example of the art till we reach the time of Sir Walter Scott." (Preface)

https://archive.org/details/twelvebesttalesb00gowarich/page/n11/mode/2up

Famous Ghost-Stories By English Authors (1912 · 2nd Edition)

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011922564

Selections From Treitschke's Lectures On Politics (1914/10)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924032455994/page/n5/mode/2up

A Book Of Ballads: Old And New (1914)

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102740297

A Month's German Newspapers: Being Representative Extracts From Those Of The Memorable Month Of December, 1914 (1915)

ℹ️ "IT is a great matter that we should understand thoroughly the point of view of "those who are at present our enemies". We wish to judge them neither more harshly nor more leniently than they deserve. In order to form our judgements wisely, we must know upon what information their point of view is founded. We must know what their beliefs are regarding the origin of the war, its progress and ultimate result, and also what motives inspire them and what they believe to be the objects for which they are fighting.

Our chief means of doing so are the German newspapers. They are quite as unanimous on most of these matters as our own newspapers are, and though they are rigidly censored by the Government, perhaps, indeed, because they are, they unquestionably reflect, at the same time as they guide, the opinions of the vast majority of the nation.

It therefore seemed to me that to make from these newspapers a number of selections, which would fairly represent their general tone, was a task well worth attempting and one likely to result in a book of permanent historical value. Some of the extracts included have already appeared in more or less complete form in some of the daily newspapers, but many of them are so important is to be indispensable to every student of the war, and therefore to deserve preservation in a complete form and in a volume of handy dimensions."
(Preface)

https://archive.org/details/monthsgermannews00gowauoft/page/n5/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/monthsgermannews0057gowa/page/n5/mode/2up

The Twelve Best Short Stories In The English Language (1920)

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100231970
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