In the past three thousand years, some four hundred authors have achieved such fame and standing as to distinguish them from the endless multitudes of commonplace penmen. To choose and present their very best work in complete, unified selections has constituted the fundamental purpose of these twelve volumes. In them, it is certain, an amazingly large proportion of the finest literature has been brought together; they form a boundless source of entertainment and a wellnigh infinite field for intellectual diversion and development. By means of brief and suggestive biographical sketches, together with the Index and the Handbook, to serve as a guide to fuller enjoyment and appreciation, the editors have sought to amplify and enhance the value of the selective feature of the work. And through an abundance of illustrations, many of them painstaking reproductions of water color paintings of the homes and favorite haunts of the chief writers, additional understanding and pleasure is afforded. The whole of this work has been built on the central idea of entertainment that shall be simple and unified. Every effort has been made to shun the elaborate, intricate methods that prevail so wastefully to-day in our educational and our recreational systems. At last educators are openly admitting that the only sane means of raising our standards of education must lie in simplifying the quantity of the studies so as to attain higher quality. In school and out of it, Johnny and his sister Molly will unquestionably profit by simple, straightforward teaching, play, reading, thinking. The more complex a game is, the fewer people can enjoy it or appreciate its fine points; the more involved a school system, the fewer children will be able to acquire thorough training. But simple games and simple instruction will enable all of us and of our little ones to get the habit of thoroughness and stability. These twelve volumes, then, are all constructed upon this principle of furnishing enjoyment in a simple, clean-cut manner; they constitute one of the most straightforward, clear, and forceful means toward the advance of our civilization.