Thinker's Library

The "Thinker's Library" was a series of 140 small hardcover books published for the Rationalist Press Association by Watts & Co., London between 1929 and 1951. They consisted of a selection of essays, literature, and extracts from greater works by various classical and contemporary humanists and rationalists, continuing in the tradition of the Renaissance.

Catalogue of titles

Each volume consists of an eponymous essay sometimes followed by a collection of related essays by the same author, or an introductory extract from a greater work by that author. Any deviation from this format will be self-explanatory from the title. All foreign language texts were published in the English language.

# "First and Last Things" by H. G. Wells
# "Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical" by Herbert Spencer
# "The Riddle of the Universe" by Ernst Haeckel
# "Humanity's Gain from Unbelief, and Other Selections from the Works of Charles Bradlaugh" (1929)
# "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill
# "A Short History of the World" by H. G. Wells
# "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin" by Charles Darwin
# "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin
# "Twelve Years in a Monastery" by Joseph McCabe
# "History of Modern Philosophy" by A. W. Benn (1930)
# "Gibbon on Christianity" - chapters 15 and 16 of Edward Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1930)
# "The Descent of Man" - Part 1 and the concluding chapter of Part 3, by Charles Darwin (1930)
# "History of Civilization in England" - Vol. I, by Henry Thomas Buckle
# "Anthropology" - Vol. I, by Sir Edward B. Tylor
# "Anthropology" - Vol. II, by Sir Edward B. Tylor
# "Iphigenia" - Two plays, by Euripides, translated by C. B. Bonner
# "Lectures and Essays" by Thomas Henry Huxley
# "The Evolution of the Idea of God" by Grant Allen
# "An Agnostic's Apology, and Other Essays" by Sir Leslie Stephen (March, 1931)
# "The Churches and Modern Thought" by Vivian Phelips
# "Penguin Island" by Anatole France
# "The Pathetic Fallacy" by Llewelyn Powys
# "Historical Trials (A Selection)" by Sir John MacDonell
# "A Short History of Christianity" by J. M. Robertson
# "The Martyrdom of Man" by Winwood Reade
# "Head-hunters, Black, White, and Brown" by Alfred C. Haddon (1932)
# "The Evidence for the Supernatural" by Ivor Ll. Tuckett
# "The City of Dreadful Night and other poems" - A selection from the poetical works of James Thomson (1932)
# "In the Beginning: The Origin of Civilisation" by G. Elliot Smith
# "Adonis: a Study in the History of Oriental Religion" - from The Golden Bough by Sir James G. Frazer (1932)
# "Our New Religion" by H. A. L. Fisher
# "On Compromise" by John Morley
# "A History of the Taxes on Knowledge" by Collet Dobson Collet
# "The Existence of God" by Joseph McCabe (1933)
# "The Story of the Bible" by MacLeod Yearsley
# "Savage Survivals: The Story of the Race Told in Simple Languages" by J. Howard Moore
# "The Revolt of the Angels" by Anatole France
# "The Outcast" by Winwood Reade
# "Penalties Upon Opinion" by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner
# "Oath, Curse, and Blessing" by Ernest Crawley
# "Fireside Science" by Sir E. Ray Lankester
# "History of Anthropology" by Alfred C. Haddon (1934)
# "The World's Earliest Laws" by Chilperic Edwards (1934)
# "Fact and Faith" by J. B. S. Haldane
# "The Men of the Dawn" by Dorothy Davison
# "The Mind in the Making" by James Harvey Robinson
# "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" by Charles Darwin
# "Psychology for Everyman (and Woman)" by A. E. Mander
# "The Religion of the Open Mind" by Adam Gowans Whyte
# "Letters on Reasoning" by J. M. Robertson
# "The Social Record of Christianity" by Joseph McCabe
# "Five Stages of Greek Religion: Studies Based on a Course of Lectures Delivered in April 1912 at Columbia University" by Gilbert Murray (1935)
# "The Life of Jesus" by Ernest Renan (1935)
# "Selected Works of Voltaire" by Joseph McCabe
# "What are we to do with our lives?" by H. G. Wells
# "Do What You Will" by Aldous Huxley (1936)
# "Clearer Thinking (Logic for Everyman)" by A. E. Mander
# "History of Ancient Philosophy" by A. W. Benn
# "Your Body: How it is built and how it works" by D. Stark Murray
# "What is Man?" by Mark Twain (1936)
# "Man and His Universe" by John Langdon-Davies
# "First Principles" by Herbert Spencer
# "Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine
# "This Human Nature" by Charles Duff
# "Dictionary of Scientific Terms as Used in the Various Sciences" by C. M. Beadnell
# "A Book of Good Faith" by Montaigne
# "The Universe of Science" by Hyman Levy
# "Liberty To-day" by C. E. M. Joad
# "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine
# "The Fair Haven" by Samuel Butler (1938)
# "A Candidate for Truth: Passages from Emerson" (1938)
# "A Short History of Women" by John Langdon-Davies
# "Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings" by Henry Maudsley
# "Morals, Manners, and Men" by Havelock Ellis (1939)
# "Pages from a Lawyer's Notebooks" by E. S. P. Haynes
# "An Architect of Nature" - The autobiography of Luther Burbank (1939)
# "Act of God" by F. Tennyson Jesse
# "The Man versus The State" by Herbert Spencer
# "The World As I See It" by Albert Einstein (1940)
# "Jocasta's Crime: An Anthropological Study" by Lord Raglan
# "The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales" by Richard Garnett
# "Kingship" by A. M. Hocart
# "Religion Without Revelation" by Julian Huxley
# "Let the People Think" by Bertrand Russell
# "The Myth of the Mind" by Frank Kenyon
# "The Liberty of Man and Other Essays" by Robert G. Ingersoll
# "Man Makes Himself" by V. Gordon Childe
# "World Revolution and the Future of the West" by W. Friedmann (1942)
# "The Origin of the Kiss and Other Scientific Diversions" by C. M. Beadnell
# "The Bible and its Background. Vol. I." by Archibald Robertson
# "The Bible and its Background. Vol. II." by Archibald Robertson
# "The Conquest of Time" by H. G. Wells (1942)
# "The Gospel of Rationalism" by Charles T. Gorham
# "Life's Unfolding" by Sir Charles Sherrington (1944)
# "An easy Outline of Astronomy" by M. Davidson
# "The God of the Bible" by Evans Bell
# "In Search of the Real Bible" by A. D. Howell Smith
# "Man Studies Life" by G. N. Ridley
# "The Outlines of Mythology" by Lewis Spence
# "Magic and Religion" by Sir James G. Frazer
# "Flight from Conflict" by Laurence Collier
# "Progress and Archaeology" by V. Gordon Childe (1944)
# "The Chemistry of Life" by J. S. D. Bacon
# "Medicine and Mankind" by Arnold Sorsby
# "The Church and Social Progress" by Marjorie Bowen [pen-name of Margaret Gabrielle Long]
# "The Great Mystics" by George Godwin
# "The Religion of Ancient Mexico" by Lewis Spence
# "Geology in the Life of Man" by Duncan Leitch
# "A Century for Freedom" by Kenneth Urwin
# "Jesus: Myth or History?" by Archibald Robertson
# The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays" by William Kingdon Clifford
# "Human Nature, War and Society" by John Cohen
# "The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice" by L. T. Hobhouse
# "Man: The Verdict of Science" by G. N. Ridley
# "The Distressed Mind" by J. A. C. Brown
# "The Illusion of National Character" by Hamilton Fyfe (1940)
# "Population, Psychology, and Peace" by J. C. Flugel
# "Friar's Lantern" by G. G. Coulton
# "Ideals and Illusions" by L. Susan Stebbing
# "An Outline of the Development of Science" by M. Mansel Davies
# "Head and Hand in Ancient Greece: Four Studies in the Social Relations of Thought" by Benjamin Farrington
# "The Evolution of Society" by J. A. C. Brown
# "Background to Modern Thought" by C. D. Hardie
# "The Holy Heretics: The Story of the Albigensian Crusade" by Edmond Holmes
# "Man His Own Master" by Archibald Robertson
# "Men Without Gods" by Hector Hawton
# "The Earliest Englishman" by Sir Arthur Smith-Woodward
# "Astronomy for Beginners" by Martin Davidson
# "The Search for Health" by D. Stark Murray
# "The Mystery of Anna Berger" by George Godwin
# "Wrestling Jacob" by Marjorie Bowen [Pen-name of Margaret Gabrielle Long]
# "The Origins of Religion" by Lord Raglan (1949)
# "The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama" by Lord Raglan
# "The Life of John Knox" by Marjorie Bowen [Pen-name of Margaret Gabrielle Long]
# "The French Revolution" by Archibald Robertson
# "The Art of Thought" by Graham Wallas
# "Literary Style and Music" by Herbert Spencer
# "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin (printed but unpublished)
# "The Science of Heredity" by J. S. D. Bacon
# "The Great Revivalists" by George Godwin (1951)

Bibliography

*Cooke, Bill (2003). "The Blasphemy Depot: A Hundred Years of the Rationalist Press Association". London, Rationalist Press Association. ISBN 0-301-00302-5

External links

* [http://www.rationalist.org.uk/thinkerslibrary/index.shtml Rationalist Press Association - The Thinker's Library] - The Rationalist Press Association's relevant page includes extracts from some volumes.