THE STORY OF MY BOOKS By EDWARD CARPENTER AUTHOR OF “TOWARDS DEMOCRACY,” “ CIVILIZATION^: ITS CAUSE AND CURE,” ETC., ETC. i sr ' LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. Price Sixpence net. (From tfie RBrary of 0.(E. and Mary MapCe Jones y? gift from ^ther (Doug f tie Trencfi, Jane Dougfitie Taylor d (Ricfuxrd Tl DougHtie III 0 m University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign THE STORY OF MY BOOKS By EDWARD CARPENTER AUTHOR OF “towards DEMOCRACY,” “ CIVILIZATION : ITS CAUSE AND CURE,” ETC., ETC. \ Ref rinted from ''‘The E^i^lish Review'"^ LONDON; GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSK IN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1916 Ua?- 'L The Story of My Books By Edward Carpenter The fate of my books has been interesting — at any rate to myself ! Leaving aside Narcissus and Other Poems, and Moses: a drama — which were written in early days at Cambridge, and were only, so to speak, exercises in litera- ture and efforts to vie with then-accepted models — Towards D emocracy , of course, has been the start-point and kernel of all my later work, the centre from which the other books have radiated. Whatever obvious weaknesses and defects it may present, I have still always been aware that it was written from a different flane from the other works, from some predominant mood or consciousness superseding the purely intellectual. Indeed, so strong has been this feeling that, though tempted once or twice to make alterations from the latter point of view, I have never really ventured to do so; and now, after more than thirty years since the inception of the book, I am entirely glad to think that I have not. It is a curious question — and one which literary criti- cism has never yet tackled — why it is that certain books, or certain passages in books, will bear reading over and over again v/ithout becoming stale ; that you can return to them after months or years and find entirely new meanings in them which had escaped you on the first occasion ; and that this can even go on happening time after time; while other books and passages are exhausted at the first reading and need never be looked at again. How is it possible that the same phrase or concatenation of words should bear within itself meaning behind meaning, horizon after horizon of significance and suggestion? Yet such undoubtedly is the case. Portions of the poetic and religious literature of most countries, and large portions of books like Leaves of Grass, the Bhagavat Gita, Plato’s Banquet, Dante’s Divina Commedia, have this inexhaustible germinative 3 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS quality. One returns to them again and again, and con- tinually finds fresh interpretations lurking beneath the old and familiar words. I imagine that the explanation is somewhat on this wise : That in the case of passages that are exhausted at a first reading (like statements, say, of church doctrine or political or scientific theory) we are simply being presented with an intellectual “ view ” of some fact; but that in the other cases in some mysterious way the words succeed in conveying the fact itself. It is like the difference between the actual solid shape of a mountain and the different views of the mountain obtainable from different sides. They are two things of a different order and dimension. It almost seems as if some mountain-facts of our experience can be imaged forth by words in such a way that the phrases themselves retain this quality of solidity, and consequently their out- lines of meaning vary according to the angle at which the reader approaches them and the variation of the reader’s mind. None of the outlines are final, and the solid content of the phrase remains behind and eludes them all. Any- how, the matter is a most mysterious one ; but as a fact it remains, and demands explanation. I have felt somehow with regard to T awards D emocracy that — while my other books were merely subsidiary, and mainly represented “ views ” and “ aspects ” — this one (with all its imperfections) had that central quality and kind of other-dimensional solidity to v/hich I have been alluding. And my experiences in writing it have corroborated that feeling. I have spoken elsewhere about the considerable period of gestation and suffering in my own life which preceded the birth of this book ; nor were its troubles over when it made its first appearance in the world. The first edition, printed and published by John Heywood, of Manchester, at my own expense, fell quite flat. The infant showed hardly any signs of life. The Press ignored the book or jeered at it. I can only find one notice by a London paper of the first year of its publication, and that is by the old sixpenny Graphic (of August nth, 1883), saying — not with- out a sort of pleasant humour — that the phrases are “ sug- gestive of a lunatic Ollendorf, with stage directions,” and ending up with the admission that “ the book is truly mystic, 3 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS wonderful — like nothing so much as a nightmare after too earnest a study of the Koran ! ” The Saturday Review got hold of the second edition, and devoted a long article (March 27th, 1886) to slating it and my socialist pamphlets (Desirable Mansions, etc.) as instances of “the kind of teaching which is now commonly set before the more ignorant classes, and which is probably accepted in good faith by not a few among them. A haphazard collection of fallacies, to which the semblance of a basis is given by half-a-dozen truisms, flavoured by a little Carlylese, or by diluted extracts of Walt Whitman . . . such is the com- pound which ‘ cultivated ’ Socialism offers as a new and saving faith to the working classes, and of which the w^orks before us offer a good example.” Then follow severe com- ments on my absurd views about usury and the manners and customis of the rich, and finally a long quotation from Towards Democracy, of which book the writer says : “And this sort of thing goes on through two hundred and fifty pages, the blank monotony of which is only relieved here and there by a few passages wTich it w^ould be undesir- able to quote, and which it is not wholesome to read.” The London Press — when it did deign to notice my work — followed the same sort of lead; and it was left (as usual) to comparative outsiders to make any real discovery in the matter. Curiously enough, a very young man (George Moore-Smith), in a long article in the Cambridge Review of November 14th, 1883, led the way in drawing serious attention to the first edition. Havelock Ellis also dug it out of a second-hand bookshop. The Indian Review (Wm. Digby) of May, 1885, had a remarkably sympathetic and intelligent notice of the second edition, and I owe much to my friend W. P. Byles’s introduction of the book to Northern readers through the Bradford Observer (of March 19th, 1886). With the third edition (1892) a certain amount of timid acknowledgment set in. Notices in a few more or less well-known papers were friendly, though brief and cautious, as with a scent of danger. The fourth and complete edition did not appear till ten years later (1902), and by that time the book had established itself. It had ceased to demand Press appreciations, favourable or otherwise ; and so the critics — very luckily for themselves — escaped, and 4 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS have escaped, without ever having had to give any sort of full pronouncement or verdict on the book ! To return to the hrst edition. I had only 500 copies printed ; but at the end of two years, when I had gathered material enough for a second edition, there w^ere still a hundred or so of these on hand. All the same I did not feel any serious misgiving. I caused 1,000 copies to be printed of the second edition (260 pp.), sent them round to the Press again, and waited. This was in 1885. If any- thing, the reception accorded was worse than before — in a sense worse, because there was more of it! By 1892 — when I needed to print a third edition — only some 700 copies of the second edition had gone : seven hundred in seven years ! The prospects were not good, yet I did not feel depressed. I had certainly not expected any great sale ; and there were even signs of improvement. My oihcr books were beginning to attract a little attention. It v/as obviously also hard on this book to have it published in Manchester. So I determined to go to London. There was no possible chance of getting a publisher there to take it as his own speculation; so I went to Mr. Fisher Unwin and asked him to print at my expense and sell it on com.- mission — which he naturally was quite willing to do. The book had now grown to 368 pp., and its price had to be raised from 2s. 6 d. to ;^s. 6 d . ; but its sales actually im- proved, and for two or three years ranged at about 200 copies a year. I began to think it was just possible that my little bark would navigate itself, that it would float out on deeper waters and into the world-current; when some- thing disastrous happened which left it in the shallows for quite a few years longer. That something was the Oscar Wilde trial or trials, which took place in the spring of 1895; but to understand how they affected Towards Democracy I must go back a little. Early in 1894 I started writing a series of pamphlets on sex questions — those ordinary questions of Love and Marriage which at that time were generally tabooed and practically not discussed at all, though they now have become almost an obsession of the public mind. As i)amphlets of that kind would have no chance with the ordinary publishers, I got them printed and issued by the 5 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS Manchester Labour Press — a little association for the spread of Socialist literature, on the committee of which I was. The Pamphlets were Sex-love, Woman, and Marriage ; and they sold pretty well — three or four thousand copies each. Encouraged by their success I began early in 1895 to put them together, and add fresh matter to them, till I had a book ready for publication — which I afterwards entitled Love's Coming-of-Age. This book I offered to Fisher Unwin (as he was already selling Towards Demo- cracy) and he accepted it — undertaking to produce the book himself and give me a fair Royalty. But meanwhile the agitation with regard to the Wilde affairs increased. Wilde himself was arrested in April, 1895, from that moment a sheer panic prevailed. Fisher Unwin refused to continue the production of the proposed book. He thought it too dangerous (though, as a matter of fact, it contained no reference to Wilde and his views); and not content with that he finally went so far as to turn Towards D emocracy out of his shop ! I felt sorry for his perturbation and quite understood some of its causes; but the matter was naturally very inconvenient for me. Thus my two books. Towards D emocracy and Love's Coming-of-Age, like two poor little orphans, were now both out on the wide world again; and I had to consider what to do with them. For the moment I will go on with Love's Coming-of- Age. Being routed by Fisher Unwin, I went to Sonnen- schein, Bertram Dobell, and others — altogether hve or six publishers — but they all shook their heads. The Wilde trial had done its work; and silence must henceforth reign on sex-subjects.* There was nothing left for me but to return to my little Labour Press at Manchester, and get the book printed and published from there — which I did, the first edition being issued in 1896. It is curious to think that that was not twenty years ago, and what a landslide has occurred since then. In 1896 no “respectable” publisher would touch the volume, and yet by to-day the tide of such literature has flowed so full and fast that my book has already become quite a little old-fashioned and demure. But the severe resistance and * I may sav here that I never happened to meet Oscar Wilde personally. 6 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS rigidity of public opinion at the time made the volume very difficult to write. The readiness, the absolute determina- tion of people to misunderstand if they possibly could, rendered it very difficult to guard against misunderstand- ings, and as a matter of fact nearly every chapter in the book was written five or six times over before I was satisfied with it. Love's Coming-of-Age ought, of course (like some parts of England's Ideal), to have been written by a woman ; but, though I tried, I could not get any of my women friends to take the subject up, and so had to deal with it myself. Ellen Key, in Sweden, began — I fancy about the same period — writing that fine series of books on Love, Mar- riage, Childhood, and so forth, which have done so much to illuminate the Western World; but at that time I knew nothing of her and her work. My book circulated almost immediately to some extent in the Socialistic world, where my name was fairly well known; but some time elapsed before it penetrated into more literary and more “ respectable circles. One of the first signs of its succeeding in the latter direction took a rather amusing shape. I had, one day, to call upon a well- known London publisher (who was already publishing some of my books, though he had refused this particular one) on business, and having discussed the matters imme- diately in hand, he presently turned to me and inquired how my Love's Coming-of-Age was selling. I, of course, gave a fairly favourable account. “ I think,” said he in a somewhat chastened tone, “ that perhaps we made rather a mistake in refusing some little time back to take it up. A Sunday or two ago I was at church [probably a Congre- gational or Unitarian Chapel], and the minister quoted a page or two from your book, and spoke very highly of it, and actually gave the published address and price, and all ; and I saw quite a lot of people noting the references down.” He paused, and then added : “ Quite a good advertisement — worth thirty or forty copies, I daresay.” I could not help smiling. No wonder he was sorry ! But the story gave promise of better things to come. In 1902 the said publishing firm was glad to take the book up and publish it on commission for me — which they (and their successors) have done ever since. And its sale 7 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS in England (though not phenomenal like that of the German translation) has, I must say, been very good. To return to Towards D emocracy . Considering its ex- pulsion from Mr. Fisher Unwin’s shop and the generally panicky condition of the book mmrket in London, there seemed nothing to do but to return to Manchester and place it also in the hands of the little Labour Press for publication. The two thousand or so copies remaining in Unwin’s hands were my property, and I had only to remove them to Manchester, get a new title-page printed, and have them issued from there. This I accordingly did, and in 1896 the Labour Press edition appeared — 368 pp., the same as Fisher Unwin’s. Naturally the Labour Press connec- tion was not very favourable as regards circulation, and the price (35. 6r/.) was high for Socialist and Labour circles. The spread of the book remained slow — slower, of course, than it had been with Unwin, and hardly amounted to 100 copies a year. This was bad ; but worse remained behind. Somewhere early in igoi the Labour Press- — whose financial affairs had never been very satisfactory — went bankrupt ! I knew, of course, what was pending; and as the stock of Towards D emocracy belonged to me, and I knew that if left at the Press it v/ould be in danger of falling into the creditors’ hands, there was nothing left but to smuggle it away as soon as I could into some place of safe keeping. Mr. James Johnston, City Councillor, always a good friend, same to the rescue, and offered me storage room in his office. I hired a dray. And so one foggy day, with a good part of a ton of Towards D emocracy on board — which 1 helped to load and unload — I logged with the drayman through the streets of Manchester amid the huge turmoil of the cotton goods and other traffic. A strange load — and I never before realised how heavy the book was ! It lay there for somie months, and then about July of the same year I made arrangements with Sonnenschein and Co. for them to sell the book on commission, and the stock was transferred into their hands. From that time its sales slowly went forward — from 100 or 150 per annum in 1902 to 800 or 900 in 1910, when the Sonnenschein business, and with it my book, passed into the hands of George Allen and Co. In 1902 the fourth part of Towards 8 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS Democracy, i.e., “Who shall Command the Heart?’' was published; and in 1905 this was incorporated with the three former parts in one complete volume. Later in the same year I succeeded (a long-cherished project) in producing a pocket edition of the whole on India paper, which has ever since sold alongside and in equal numbers with the Library edition. Thus, after twenty-one years (in 1902) these writings (begun in 1881) came to an end; and three years later the book took its definite and permanent form in print and binding, and some sort of rather indefinite place in the world of letters. Talking about their place in the world of letters, some of my books have, I fear, puzzled the public by their titles. loldus has been much of an offender in this way. The uncertainty as to who or what lolaus might be, the difficulty of knowing how to spell the word, and the impossibility of pronouncing it, proved at one time such obstacles that they quite adversely affected the sales. On one occasion I received a telegram from a firm asking me to send at once 200 Oil-cans. My puzzlement was great, as I had indeed never embarked in the oil trade, nor in my wildest dreams thought of doing so — till suddenly it flashed upon me that the message, having had to pass through a rustic post- office, had been transformed on the way, and that the romantic friend and companion of Hercules had been turned into a paraffin tin ! After that I modified the title so as to avoid any such sacrilege in the future. Coming back to Towards D emocracy again, I do not know that I have ever seen a very serious estimate or criticism of that book in any well-known literary paper. Like others of my works it has come into the literary sheep-fold, not through the accepted gate, but “ some other way, like a thief or a robber.” It has been generally ignored — as already explained — by the guardians of the gate, yet it has quietly and decisively established itself, and the “ sheep ” somehow have taken kindly to the “ robber.” And perhaps the matter is best so. A book of that kind is not easy to criticise; it cannot be dispatched by a snap phrase; it does not belong to any distinct class or school; its form is open to question ; its message is at once too simple and too intricate for public elucidation — even if 9 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS really understood by the interpreter. That it should go its own way quietly, neither applauded by the crowd, nor barked at by the dogs, but knocking softly here and there at a door and finding friendly hospitality — is surely its most gracious and satisfying destiny. But though the ignoring by the critics of Towards D emocracy has seemed natural and proper, I confess I have been somewhat surprised by their non-recognition or non-discussion of the questions dealt with in the other books; because, as I have said, these books are on a different plane from T awards D emocracy . They deal with theories or views which flow (as I think) perfectly logically from the central idea of Towards D emocracy — just as the different views or aspects of a mountain flow perfectly logically from the mountain-fact itself. We cannot discuss the central idea, but we can discuss the aspects, because they come within the range of intellectual apprehension and definition. If the world — it seems to me — should ever seize the central fact of such books as Leaves of Grass and Towards D emocracy , it must inevitably formulate new views of life on almost every conceivable subject: the aspects of all life will be changed. And the discussion and definition of these views ought to be extraordinarily inter- esting. It is therefore surprising, I say, that no serious discussion of the underlying or implicit assumptions of these two books has yet taken place. It is true, of course, that to-day the world is witnessing a strange change of attitude on almost all questions, and a vague feeling after the new aspects to which I am alluding; but it does not concatenate these views on to any central fact, and there- fore cannot deal with them adequately or effectively. It is as if people, having taken drawings of a hitherto unex- plored mountain from many different sides, and comparing them together, should not realise that it is the same moun- tain which they have been observing all the time, and that there is a unity and a reality there which will explain and concatenate all the outlines. I say it is a little disappoint- ing that this point has not yet been reached, because it would make the discussion and definition of the new views so wonderfully interesting. On the other hand, it is obvious that in the midst of the enormous output and rush of TO THE STORY OF MY BOOKS modern literature, critics generally have thrown up the sponge, and are content to get through their work perfunc- torily or as best they can, without the added labour of tackling, or attempting to tackle, a great new synthesis. The attempt made a quarter of a century ago — -in Civilisation : Its Cause and Citre — to define the character- istics of (modern) civilisation, and to show the civilisation period as a distinct stage in social evolution, destined to pass away and to be succeeded by a later stage — of which later stage even now some of the features may be indicated — has never as far as I know been seriously taken up and worked out. The Socialists, of course, have certain views on the subject, but they are limited to the economic field, and do not by any means cover the whole ground; and various doctrinaire sets and sects are nibbling at the problem from different sides; but a real statement and in- vestigation of the whole question, and a linking of it up to deepest spiritual facts, would obviously be absorbingly interesting. I first read the paper which bears the above name at the Fabian Society (? in 1888), and, needless to say, it was jeered at on all sides; but since then, somehow, a change has come, and even Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw, who most attacked me at the time, have ceased to use the word “ Civilisation ” in its old optimistic and mid- Victorian sense. What we want now is a real summing-up and settling of what the word connotes — both from the historical point of view and with regard to the future. Another paper in the same book, which shocked a good many of my Cambridge friends, was my “ Criticism of Modern Science.” The Victorian age glorified modern science — not only in respect of its patient and assiduous observation of facts, which everyone allows, but also on account of the supposed laws of Nature which it had dis- covered, and which were accounted immutable and ever- lasting. A light arising from some quite other source con- vinced me that this infallibility of the scientific “ laws ” was an entire illusion. I had been brought up on mathe- matics and physical science. I had lectured for years on the latter. But now the reaction set in ; and — rather rudely and crudely it must be confessed — I turned on my old teacher to rend her! I published, in 1885, and in Man- chester, a shilling pamphlet called “ Modern Science : A THE STORY OF MY BOOKS Criticism/’ and sent it round to my mathematical and scientific friends. I think most of them thought I had gone daft ! But, after all, the whirligig of Time has brought its revenge, and the inevitable evolution of human thought has done its work; and now, one may ask, where are the airy fairy laws and theories of the science of the last century.^ The great stores of observations and facts are certainly there, and so are the marvellous applications of these things to practical life — but where are the immutable laws ? — where are the clean-cut systems of the families and species of plants and animals? where is Boyle’s law of gases ? where the stability of the planetary orbits ? where the permanence and indestructibility of the atom? where is the theory of gravitation? where the theory of light, the theory of electricity? the law of supply and demand in political economy, of natural selection in biology? of the fixity of the elements in chemistry, or the succession of the strata in geology? All gone into the melting-pot — and quickly losing their outlines ! It is true that in the great brew which is being thus formed, rags and chunks of the old “ Laws of Nature ” are still discernible ; but no one supposes they are there for long, and on all sides it is obvious that the scientific world is giving up the search for them, and the expectation (in the face of such things as Radium, Hertzian waves, Karyo- kinesis, and so forth) of ever reconstituting Science again on the old Victorian basis. These fixed “ laws,” it is pretty evident, and their remaining debris will melt away, till out of the seething brew something entirely different and un- expected emerges. And that will be? . . . Yes, what indeed out of such a cauldron might be expected to emerge — a living Form, a strange and wonderful Figure! Yet the curious thing is that while this process of the dissolution of scientific theory is going on before our eyes, and on all sides, no one seems to be aware of it — at any rate, no one sums it up, gives it outline and definition, or tackles its meaning and result. Tolstoy was pleased with the attacks on modern science contained in Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure, wrote to me about them, and had the ' chapter printed in Russian, with a preface by himself. But his point of view was that Science, being a serious enemy to Religion, anything which bombarded and crippled Science 12 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS would help to free Religion. That was not my point of view. I do not regard Science — or rather Intellectualism — as the foe of Religion, but more as a stage which has to be passed through on the way to a higher order of per- ception or consciousness — which might possibly be termed Religion — only the word religion is too vague to be very applicable here. Another airy castle which is obviously fading away before our eyes is that of the “ Laws ” of Morality. The whole structure of civilisation-morality is being rapidly undermined. The moral aspects of property, commerce, class-relations, sex-relations, marriage, patriotism, and so forth, are shifting like dissolving views. Nietzsche has scorched up the old Christian altruism; Bernard Shaw has burned the Decalogue. Yet (in this country and according to our custom) we jog along and pretend not to see what is happening. No body of people faces out the situation or attempts to foretell its future. The Ethical Society pro- fesses to substitute Ethics for Religion as a basis of social life ; yet never once has it informed us what it means by Ethics ! The law courts go mumbling on over ancient measures of right and wrong which the man in the street has long ago discarded. Much less has any group attempted to foreshadow the new Morality and concatenate it on to the great root-fact of existence. In my “ Defence of Criminals : A Criticism of Morality,” ^ I gave an outline and an indication of what was happening and of the way out into the future ; but that paper, as far as I know, has never been seriously discussed. Nevertheless, under the surface new ideas are forming, the lines of the coming life are spreading. The book Civilisation — first published by Sonnenschein in 1889 — has had a good circulation, and been translated into many languages. Though somewhat hastily and crudely put together, yet owing to a certain elan about it, and probably largely owing to the fact that it gives expression to the main issues above-mentioned, it has been well received. One idea, which runs all through the book — namely, that of there being three great stages of Consciousness : the simple consciousness (of the animal or of primitive * One of the chapters in Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure. 13 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS man), the self-consciousness (of the civilised or intellectual man), and the mass-consciousness or cosmic consciousness of the coming man, is only roughly sketched there, but is developed more fully in The Art of Creation. It is, of course, deeply germane to Toivards Democracy. And though we may not yet be in a position to define the con- ception very exactly, still it is quite evident, I think, that some such evolution into a further order of consciousness is the key to the future, and that many aeons to come (of human progress) will be ruled by it. Dr. Richard Bucke, by the publication (in 1901) of his book. Cosmic Conscious- ness, made a great contribution to the cause of humanity. The book was a bit casual, hurried, doctrinaire, un-literary, and so forth, but it brought together a mass of material, and did the inestimable service of being the first to systematically consider and analyse the subject. Strangely, here again we find that his book — though always spreading and circulating about the world, beneath the surface — has elicited no serious recognition or response from the accredited authorities, philosophers, psychologists, and so forth; and the subject with which it deals is in such circles practically ignored — though in comparatively unknown coteries it may be warmJy discussed. So the world goes on — the real expanding vital forces being always beneath the surface and hidden, as in a bud, while the accepted forms and conclusons are little more than a vari-coloured husk, waiting to be thrown off. Relating itself closely and logically with the idea (i) of the three stages of Consciousness is that (2) of the Berke- leyan view of matter — the idea that matter in itself is an illusion, being only a film between soul and soul : called matter when the film is opaque to the perceiving soul, but called mind when the latter sees through to the intelligence behind it. And these stages again relate logically to the idea (3) of the Universal or Omnipresent Self. The Art of Creation was written to give expression to these three ideas and the natural deductions from them. The doctrine of the Universal Self is obviously funda- mental ; and it is clear that once taken hold of and adopted it must inevitably revolutionise all our views of morality — since current morality is founded on the separation (T self from self; and must revolutionise, too, all our views 14 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS of science. Such matters as the transmutation of chemical elements, the variation of biological species, the unity of health, the unity of disease, our views of political economy and psychology; production for use instead of for profit, communism, telepathy; the relation between psychology and physiology, and so forth, must take on quite a new complexion when the idea which lies at the root of them is seized. This idea must enable us to understand the continuity of man with the protozoa, the relation of the physiological centres, on the one hand to the individual man, and on the other to the race from which he springs, the meaning of reincarnation, and the physical conditions of its occurrence. It must have eminently practical appli- (!ations : as in the bringing of the races of the world together, the gradual evolution of a non-governm.ental form of society, the communalisation of land and capital, the free- ing of woman to equality with man, the extension of the monogamic marriage into some kind of group alliance, the restoration and full recognition of the heroic friendships of Greek and primitive times ; and, again, in the sturdy simplification and debarrassment of daily life by the removal of those things which stand between us and Nature, between ourselves and our fellows — by plain living, friend- ship with the animals, open-air habits, fruitarian food, and such degree of nudity as we can reasonably attain to. These mental and social changes and movements, and many others which are all around us waiting for recogni- tion, will clearly, when they ripen, constitute a revolution in human life deeper and more far-reaching than any which we know of belonging to historical times. Even any one of them, worked out practically, would be fatal to most of our existing institutions. Together they would form a revolution so great that to call it a mere extension or out- growth of civilisation would be quite inadequate. Rather we must look upon them as the preparation for a stage entirely different from and beyond civilisation. To tackle these things in advance, to prepare for them, study them, understand them, is clearly absolutely necessary. It is a duty which — however burked or ignored for a time — will soon be forced upon us by the march of events. And it is a duty which cannot effectively be fulfilled piecemeal, but only by regarding all these separate movements of the 15 THE STORY OF MY BOOKS human mind, and of society, as part and parcel of one great underlying movement — one great new disclosure of the human soul. My little covey of books, dating from Towards Demo- cracy, has been hatched mainly for the purpose of giving expression to these and other various questions which — raised in my mind by the writing of Towards D emocracy — demanded clearer statement than they could find there. Towards D emocracy came first, as a vision, so to speak, and a revelation — as a great body of feeling and intuition which I had to put into words as best I could. It carried with it — as a flood carries trees and rocks from the moun- tains where it originates — all sorts of assumptions and con- clusions. Afterwards — for my own satisfaction as much as for the sake of others — I had to examine and define these assumptions and conclusions. That was the origin of my prose writings, most of them — of England' s Ideal, Civilisation, The Art of Creation, Love's Commg-of-Age, The Intermediate Sex, The Drama of Lov& and Death, Angels' Wings, Non-Governmental Society,^ A Visit to Gnani,\ and so forth. They, like the questions they deal with, have led a curious underground life in the literary world, spreading widely as a matter of fact, yet not on the surface. Like old moles they have worked away unseen and unobserved, yet in such a manner as to throw up heaps here and there, and in the most un- likely places, and bring back friends to me on all sides — lovely and beautiful friends for whom I cannot sufficiently thank them. * A chapter in Prisons, Police and Punishment. + In Adam's Peak to Elephanfa. “The Story of My Books” forms a chapter of | Mr. Edward Carpenter’s autobiography, “ My Days | and Dreams,” to be published shortly by Messrs. | George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. j PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAI.V BY R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. Edward Carpenter’s Works Towards Democracy Library Edition, 4s. 6rf. net. Pocket Edition, 3s. 6d. net. England’s Ideal 12th Thousand. 2s. 6d. net and is. net. Civilization : Its Cause and Cure Essays on Modern Science. 13th Thousand. 2s. 6d. net and is. net. Love’s Coming of Age : On the Relations of the Sexes. 12th Thousand. 3s. 6d. net. Angels’ Wings. Essays on Art and Life Illustrated. Third Edition. 4s. 6d. net. Adam’s Peak to Elephanta : Sketches in Ceylon and India. New Edition. 4s. 6d. net. A Visit to a Ghanij Four Chapters reprinted from Adam's Peak to Elephanta. With New Preface, and 2 Photogravures. Large Crown 8vo, ^ cloth, is. 6d. net. An Anthology of Friendship : lolaus New and Enlarged Edition. 2s. 6d. net. The Promised Land : A Drama of a People’s Deliverance. Crown 8vo, 2s. td, net. Chants of Labour : A Songbook for the People, with Frontispiece and Cover by Walter Crane. 7th Thousand, is.net The Art of Creation : Essays on the Self and its Powers. Second Edition. 3s. 6rf. net. Days with Walt Whitman 3s. 6d. net. The Intermediate Sex : A Study of some Transitional Types of Men and Women. Third Edition. 3s. td. net. The Drama of Love and Death : A Story of Human Evolution and Transfiguration. Second Edition. net Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk : A study in Social Evolution. 4s. 6d. net. The Healing of Nations Third Edition. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 2s. 6d. net ; Paper, 2 S. net. The Simplification of Life. From the Writings of Edward Carpenter. Crown 8vo. New Edition. 2 s. net LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LIMITED