The Decameron and the Arabian Nights are not properly novels, but rather collections of short stories. The oldest readable novel is Don Quixote. It is an excellent book to read aloud in a mixed company, and is still as funny as any modern book. Don Quixote is a gentleman of kind heart and a certain innate refinement, in spite of the crack in his brain and his tilting at windmills. Sancho Panza is the thoroughly practical, faithful clown; and Sancho Panza’s mule and Don Quixote’s warhorse are characters in themselves. The book was written as a satire on chivalry; but its humanity has made it live long since the death of knight-errantry. Gulliver, too, was a satire, but now we read it merely as an amusing story; and Fielding’s Joseph Andrews was commenced as a satire on Richardson’s Pamela, but became so interesting as a story that even in its own day readers forgot all about the parody. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was written in the seventeenth century, by a tinker, in prison; and it is a distinctly religious book. But even the non-religious will admit that it is a good human story. Intended originally as an allegory, we read it now for its own story interest. Along with the Arabian Nights young people should, without exception, read Robinson Crusoe. Nearly every one has read it; but there are parts of it that will bear reading again and again and many times. The introduction may be skipped; but beginning with Crusoe’s shipwreck on the island we are deeply fascinated by all he does to care for himself and find some amusement. He is an intensely practical man, and never gets sentimental, because he is always at work, a good thing for some of us moderns who are inclined to bemoan our lot. For about a hundred pages this account of the life on the island continues, but when Crusoe is rescued the interest grows less, and we may very well omit the last half of the book. The first modern novel was begun by Richardson somewhat over a hundred and fifty years ago as a book of instruction on correct letter writing. Richardson was a printer fifty years old. In his youth he had often helped young ladies write love letters. So it was thought he could write a good book of model letters. He put a story into them to make them more lifelike and interesting, and the story turned out to be the beginning of modern fiction as an established form of literature, for the good novels that had gone before had not led the way for others as Richardson’s books did. All Richardson’s novels are written in the form of letters, and to modern readers are decidedly tedious.