Truly, herein lies one of life's chief joys, in encountering what others have thought and achieved--in meeting the actors in the great world drama, the scenes in which they played their parts, the deeds by which they have won fame and fortune; still more delectable is the pleasure of whiling away leisure hours with those folk who are but products of the fancy, children of the poet's brain, dreams of the teller of tales: Odysseus, who, for the last three thousand years, as Sir Philip Sidney has put it, "held children from play and old men from the chimney corner"; Falstaff, chuckling at the comical ease with which he hoodwinks all about him; Lady Macbeth, who, even in her dreams, may not forget the dread stain upon her little hand; Faust, ever seeking to rid himself of his demon accomplice; the knights of King Arthur's round table, Robin Hood and his merry men, Dickens's troop of immortal grotesques, Bret Harte's rough miners, with their hearts of gold, Irving's droll New Yorkers of the Knickerbocker era, Longfellow's Blacksmith and his Evangeline,--these and a host of other undying notables have made life far richer for us all. Ours is the fault if we do not avail ourselves of their magic. For here in America the special opportunity to mingle with them lies readier to the hand than in any other nation. Nowhere else, not in England, nor France, nor in Italy can the everyday man find books at his command for the asking. In a few of the largest European cities, and not anywhere else on that continent, there are libraries of size and worth, yet even these are hedged about with a hundred rules and regulations that hamper circulation. But here, through the length and breadth of this glorious land, are thousands and yet more thousands of free libraries, containing all manner of books, of every age and nation, awaiting your demand. They contain all that is splendid in the way of printed matter, but also much, alas, that is not worth any man's time; so that though the best lies open and free to us, it is mingled with a vast amount of wretched trash. Here lies the chief difficulty for us Americans: How are we to distinguish the chaff from the wheat, the weeds from the harvest? The task is that of seeking the proverbial needle in the haystack. We are deluged with printed matter, tons upon tons of books and magazines are poured daily upon the bookseller's counters. What is our chance of choosing the treasures from out this hodgepodge? To meet this very problem these volumes have been prepared; it is hardly our place to dwell upon the years of labor and thought in which they have gradually taken shape, but it is perhaps to the point to remark that they represent the patient effort of many judges and critics to supply an introduction and a guide to the best and most inspiring literature of the nations from the beginning of the art to the present day,--a means of recreation, amusement, and lasting profit.