THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS JOINT EDITORS ARTHUR MEE Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge J. A. HAMMERTON Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia VOL. III FICTION MCMX _Table of Contents_ DAUDET, ALPHONSE Tartarin of Tarascon DAY, THOMAS Sandford and Merton DEFOE, DANIEL Robinson Crusoe Captain Singleton DICKENS, CHARLES Barnaby Rudge Bleak House David Copperfield Dombey and Son Great Expectations Hard Times Little Dorrit Martin Chuzzlewit Nicholas Nickleby Oliver Twist Old Curiosity Shop Our Mutual Friend Pickwick Papers Tale of Two Cities DISRAELI, BENJAMIN (Earl of Beaconsfield) Coningsby Sybil, or The Two Nations Tancred, or The New Crusade DUMAS, ALEXANDRE Marguerite de Valois Black Tulip Corsican Brothers Count of Monte Cristo The Three Musketeers Twenty Years After A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end of Volume XX. * * * * * ALPHONSE DAUDET Tartarin of Tarascon Alphonse Daudet, the celebrated French novelist, was born at Nimes on May 13, 1840, and as a youth of seventeen went to Paris, where he began as a poet at eighteen, and at twenty-two made his first efforts in the drama. He soon found his feet as a contributor to the leading journals of the day and a successful writer for the stage. He was thirty-two when he wrote "Tartarin of Tarascon," than which no better comic tale has been produced in modern times. Tarascon is a real town, not far from the birthplace of Daudet, and the people of the district have always had a reputation for "drawing the long bow." It was to satirise this amiable weakness of his southern compatriots that the novelist created the character of Tartarin, but while he makes us laugh at the absurd misadventures of the lion-hunter, it will be noticed how ingeniously he prevents our growing out of temper with him, how he contrives to keep a warm corner in our hearts for the bragging, simple-minded, good-natured fellow. That is to say, it is a work of essential humour, and the lively style in which the story is told attracts us to it time and again with undiminished pleasure. In two subsequent books, "Tartarin in the Alps," and "Port Tarascon," Daudet recounted further adventures of his delightful hero. His "Sapho" and "Kings in Exile" have also been widely read. Daudet died on December 17, 1897. _I.--The Mighty Hunter at Home_