WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS may be readily disclaimed. To set it up even
would seem ridiculous to any one acquainted with the enormous range of
the subject. Not so ridiculous, however, may seem the claim to have
established a standard and a form of achievement new in the annals of
literary production; and one, moreover, _whose importance as an
educative factor,_ no less than as a test of the special needs of the
era wherein we are living, may be as valid in its own way and in its own
time as some of those other contributions which have helped along the
revival of learning and of letters, from that first awakening of the
Renascence humanists down to our own day.

* * * * *

EDMOND ABOUT

The King of the Mountains

Edmond About was the son of a grocer at Dieuze, in Lorraine,
France, where he was born Feb. 14, 1828. Even in childhood he
displayed the vivacity of mind and the irreverent spirit which
were to make him the most entertaining anti-clerical writer of
his period. His tales have the qualities of the best writing
of the eighteenth century, enhanced by the modern interest of
his own century. "The King of the Mountains" is the best-known
of his novels, as it is also the best. In 1854 About was
working as a poor archaeologist at the French School at
Athens, where he noticed there was a curious understanding
between the brigands and the police of modern Hellas.
Brigandage was becoming a safe and almost a respectable Greek
industry. "Why not make it quite respectable and regular?"
said About. "Why does not some brigand chief, with a good
connection, convert his business into a properly registered
joint-stock company?" So he produced, in 1856, one of the most
delightful of satirical novels, "The King of the Mountains."
Edmond About died on January 17, 1885, shortly after his
election to the French Academy.

_I.--The Brigand and His Business_

I am no coward; still, I have some regard for my life. It is a present I
received from my parents, and I wish to preserve it as long as possible
in remembrance of them. So, on my arrival at Athens, in April, 1856, I
refrained from going into the country.

Had the director of the Hamburg Botanical Gardens said to me when I left
Germany: "My dear Hermann Schultz, I want you to go to Greece and draw
up a report on the remarkable system of brigandag