Wednesday, July 18, 2012

1000 Books must read before you die!!

  1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
  2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
  3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith   
  4. Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee   
  5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson   
  6. The Sea – John Banville
  7. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble   
  8. The Plot Against America – Philip Roth   
  9. The Master – Colm Tóibín   
  10. Vanishing Point – David Markson   
  11. The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd   
  12. Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair   
  13. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell   
  14. Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle   
  15. The Colour – Rose Tremain   
  16. Thursbitch – Alan Garner   
  17. The Light of Day – Graham Swift
  18. What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt   
  19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
  20. Islands – Dan Sleigh   
  21. Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
  22. London Orbital – Iain Sinclair   
  23. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry   
  24. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
  25. The Double – José Saramago
  26. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
  27. Unless – Carol Shields
  28. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
  29. The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
  30. That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
  31. In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
  32. Shroud – John Banville
  33. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
  34. Youth – J.M. Coetzee
  35. Dead Air – Iain Banks
  36. Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
  37. The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
  38. Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
  39. Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
  40. Platform – Michael Houellebecq
  41. Schooling – Heather McGowan
  42. Atonement – Ian McEwan
  43. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
  44. Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
  45. The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
  46. Fury – Salman Rushdie
  47. At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
  48. Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
  49. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
  50. The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
  51. An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
  52. The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho   
  53. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
  54. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
  55. The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
  56. Under the Skin – Michel Faber
  57. Ignorance – Milan Kundera   
  58. Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
  59. Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
  60. City of God – E.L. Doctorow
  61. How the Dead Live – Will Self
  62. The Human Stain – Philip Roth
  63. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
  64. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
  65. Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
  66. Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
  67. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
  68. Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
  69. Pastoralia – George Saunders                                                                                                                    1900's                                                                                       
  70. Timbuktu – Paul Auster
  71. The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
  72. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
  73. As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
  74. Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
  75. Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
  76. The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
  77. Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
  78. Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
  79. Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
  80. Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
  81. Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
  82. Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
  83. All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
  84. The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
  85. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
  86. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
  87. Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
  88. Another World – Pat Barker
  89. The Hours – Michael Cunningham
  90. Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
  91. Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
  92. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
  93. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
  94. Great Apes – Will Self
  95. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan   
  96. Underworld – Don DeLillo
  97. Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
  98. The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
  99. American Pastoral – Philip Roth
  100. The Untouchable – John Banville
  101. Silk – Alessandro Baricco
  102. Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
  103. Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
  104. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
  105. The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
  106. Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
  107. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
  108. The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
  109. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
  110. The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
  111. Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
  112. The Information – Martin Amis
  113. The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
  114. Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
  115. The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
  116. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
  117. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
  118. Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
  119. The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
  120. Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
  121. The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
  122. Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
  123. Land – Park Kyong-ni
  124. The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
  125. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
  126. Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
  127. City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
  128. How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
  129. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
  130. Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
  131. Disappearance – David Dabydeen
  132. The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
  133. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
  134. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
  135. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
  136. Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
  137. Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
  138. Complicity – Iain Banks
  139. On Love – Alain de Botton
  140. What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
  141. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
  142. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
  143. The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
  144. The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
  145. The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
  146. The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
  147. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
  148. Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
  149. The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
  150. A Heart So White – Javier Marias
  151. Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
  152. Indigo – Marina Warner
  153. The Crow Road – Iain Banks
  154. Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
  155. Jazz – Toni Morrison
  156. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
  157. Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
  158. The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
  159. Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
  160. The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
  161. Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
  162. Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
  163. Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
  164. Arcadia – Jim Crace
  165. Wild Swans – Jung Chang
  166. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
  167. Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
  168. Mao II – Don DeLillo
  169. Typical – Padgett Powell
  170. Regeneration – Pat Barker
  171. Downriver – Iain Sinclair
  172. Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
  173. Wise Children – Angela Carter
  174. Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
  175. Amongst Women – John McGahern
  176. Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
  177. Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
  178. Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
  179. The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
  180. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
  181. A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
  182. Like Life – Lorrie Moore
  183. Possession – A.S. Byatt
  184. The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
  185. The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
  186. A Disaffection – James Kelman
  187. Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
  188. Moon Palace – Paul Auster
  189. Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
  190. Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
  191. The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
  192. The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
  193. The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
  194. The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
  195. Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
  196. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
  197. London Fields – Martin Amis
  198. The Book of Evidence – John Banville
  199. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
  200. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
  201. The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
  202. Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
  203. The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
  204. The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
  205. Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
  206. Libra – Don DeLillo   
  207. The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
  208. Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
  209. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
  210. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
  211. The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
  212. The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
  213. The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
  214. The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
  215. The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
  216. The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
  217. Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
  218. The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
  219. The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
  220. World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
  221. Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
  222. The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
  223. Beloved – Toni Morrison
  224. Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
  225. Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
  226. Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
  227. Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
  228. The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
  229. Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
  230. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
  231. Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
  232. Foe – J.M. Coetzee
  233. The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
  234. Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
  235. The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
  236. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
  237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
  238. The Cider House Rules – John Irving
  239. A Maggot – John Fowles
  240. Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
  241. Contact – Carl Sagan
  242. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
  243. Perfume – Patrick Süskind
  244. Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
  245. White Noise – Don DeLillo
  246. Queer – William Burroughs
  247. Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
  248. Legend – David Gemmell
  249. Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
  250. The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
  251. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
  252. The Lover – Marguerite Duras
  253. Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
  254. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
  255. Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
  256. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
  257. Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
  258. Neuromancer – William Gibson
  259. Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
  260. Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
  261. Shame – Salman Rushdie
  262. Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
  263. Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
  264. La Brava – Elmore Leonard
  265. Waterland – Graham Swift
  266. The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
  267. The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
  268. The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
  269. The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
  270. If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
  271. A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
  272. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
  273. Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
  274. A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
  275. Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
  276. The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
  277. The Newton Letter – John Banville
  278. On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
  279. Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
  280. The Names – Don DeLillo
  281. Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
  282. Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
  283. The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
  284. July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
  285. Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
  286. Broken April – Ismail Kadare
  287. Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
  288. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
  289. Rites of Passage – William Golding
  290. Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
  291. Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
  292. City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
  293. The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco   
  294. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera   
  295. Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
  296. Shikasta – Doris Lessing
  297. A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
  298. Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
  299. The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
  300. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
  301. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
  302. The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
  303. The World According to Garp – John Irving
  304. Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
  305. The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
  306. The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
  307. Yes – Thomas Bernhard
  308. The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
  309. In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
  310. The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
  311. Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
  312. The Shining – Stephen King
  313. Dispatches – Michael Herr
  314. Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
  315. Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
  316. The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
  317. The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
  318. Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
  319. The Public Burning – Robert Coover
  320. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
  321. Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
  322. Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
  323. Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
  324. Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
  325. W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
  326. A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
  327. Grimus – Salman Rushdie
  328. The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
  329. Fateless – Imre Kertész
  330. Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
  331. High Rise – J.G. Ballard
  332. Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
  333. Dead Babies – Martin Amis
  334. Correction – Thomas Bernhard
  335. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
  336. The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
  337. Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
  338. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
  339. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
  340. Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  341. Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
  342. A Question of Power – Bessie Head
  343. The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
  344. The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
  345. Crash – J.G. Ballard
  346. The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
  347. Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
  348. The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
  349. Sula – Toni Morrison
  350. Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
  351. The Breast – Philip Roth
  352. The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
  353. G – John Berger
  354. Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
  355. House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
  356. In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
  357. The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
  358. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
  359. Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
  360. The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
  361. Rabbit Redux – John Updike
  362. The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
  363. The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
  364. The Ogre – Michael Tournier
  365. The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
  366. Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
  367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
  368. Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
  369. Troubles – J.G. Farrell
  370. Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
  371. The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
  372. Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
  373. Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
  374. Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
  375. Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  376. The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
  377. The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
  378. Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
  379. The Godfather – Mario Puzo   
  380. Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
  381. Them – Joyce Carol Oates
  382. A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
  383. Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
  384. Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
  385. The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
  386. Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
  387. Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
  388. The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
  389. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
  390. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
  391. Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
  392. The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
  393. In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
  394. A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
  395. The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
  396. Chocky – John Wyndham
  397. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
  398. The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
  399. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
  400. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
  401. Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
  402. The Joke – Milan Kundera
  403. No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
  404. The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
  405. A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
  406. The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
  407. Trawl – B.S. Johnson
  408. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
  409. The Magus – John Fowles
  410. The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
  411. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
  412. Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
  413. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
  414. Things – Georges Perec
  415. The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
  416. August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
  417. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
  418. Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
  419. The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
  420. Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
  421. Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
  422. Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
  423. Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
  424. The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
  425. Herzog – Saul Bellow
  426. V. – Thomas Pynchon
  427. Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
  428. The Graduate – Charles Webb
  429. Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
  430. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
  431. The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
  432. Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
  433. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
  434. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
  435. The Collector – John Fowles
  436. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
  437. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
  438. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov   
  439. The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
  440. The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
  441. Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
  442. Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
  443. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
  444. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
  445. Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
  446. A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
  447. Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
  448. Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
  449. Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
  450. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
  451. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
  452. The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
  453. How It Is – Samuel Beckett
  454. Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
  455. The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
  456. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
  457. Rabbit, Run – John Updike
  458. Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
  459. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
  460. Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
  461. Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
  462. The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
  463. Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
  464. Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
  465. Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
  466. Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
  467. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
  468. The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
  469. Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
  470. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
  471. The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
  472. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
  473. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
  474. Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
  475. Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
  476. The End of the Road – John Barth
  477. The Once and Future King – T.H. White
  478. The Bell – Iris Murdoch
  479. Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
  480. Voss – Patrick White
  481. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
  482. Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
  483. Homo Faber – Max Frisch
  484. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
  485. Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
  486. Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
  487. The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
  488. Justine – Lawrence Durrell
  489. Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
  490. The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
  491. The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
  492. Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
  493. The Floating Opera – John Barth
  494. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien   
  495. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
  496. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
  497. A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
  498. The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
  499. The Quiet American – Graham Greene
  500. The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
  501. The Recognitions – William Gaddis
  502. The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
  503. Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
  504. I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
  505. Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
  506. The Story of O – Pauline Réage
  507. A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
  508. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
  509. Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
  510. The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
  511. The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
  512. The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
  513. Watt – Samuel Beckett
  514. Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
  515. Junkie – William Burroughs
  516. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
  517. Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
  518. Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
  519. The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
  520. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
  521. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
  522. Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
  523. The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
  524. Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
  525. Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
  526. Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
  527. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
  528. The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
  529. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
  530. The Rebel – Albert Camus
  531. Molloy – Samuel Beckett
  532. The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
  533. The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
  534. The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
  535. The Third Man – Graham Greene
  536. The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
  537. Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
  538. The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
  539. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
  540. The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
  541. The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
  542. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
  543. The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
  544. The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
  545. Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
  546. The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
  547. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
  548. All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
  549. Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
  550. Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
  551. The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
  552. Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
  553. Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
  554. The Victim – Saul Bellow
  555. Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
  556. If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
  557. Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
  558. The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
  559. The Plague – Albert Camus
  560. Back – Henry Green
  561. Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
  562. The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
  563. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
  564. Animal Farm – George Orwell
  565. Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
  566. The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
  567. Loving – Henry Green
  568. Arcanum 17 – André Breton
  569. Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
  570. The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
  571. Transit – Anna Seghers
  572. Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
  573. Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
  574. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
  575. Caught – Henry Green
  576. The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
  577. Embers – Sandor Marai
  578. Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
  579. The Outsider – Albert Camus
  580. In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
  581. The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
  582. The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
  583. Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
  584. Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
  585. The Hamlet – William Faulkner
  586. Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
  587. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
  588. Native Son – Richard Wright
  589. The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
  590. The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
  591. Party Going – Henry Green
  592. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
  593. Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
  594. At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
  595. Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
  596. Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
  597. Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
  598. Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
  599. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
  600. After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
  601. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
  602. Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
  603. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
  604. Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
  605. Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
  606. U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
  607. Murphy – Samuel Beckett
  608. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
  609. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
  610. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
  611. The Years – Virginia Woolf
  612. In Parenthesis – David Jones
  613. The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
  614. Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
  615. To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
  616. Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
  617. Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
  618. The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
  619. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
  620. Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
  621. Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
  622. Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
  623. At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
  624. Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
  625. Independent People – Halldór Laxness
  626. Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
  627. The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
  628. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
  629. The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
  630. England Made Me – Graham Greene
  631. Burmese Days – George Orwell
  632. The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
  633. Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
  634. Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
  635. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
  636. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
  637. A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
  638. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
  639. Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
  640. Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
  641. Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
  642. Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
  643. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
  644. Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
  645. A Day Off – Storm Jameson
  646. The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
  647. A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
  648. Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
  649. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
  650. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
  651. To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
  652. The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
  653. The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
  654. The Waves – Virginia Woolf
  655. The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
  656. Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
  657. The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
  658. Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
  659. Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
  660. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
  661. Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
  662. Passing – Nella Larsen
  663. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
  664. Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
  665. Living – Henry Green
  666. The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
  667. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
  668. Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
  669. The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
  670. Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
  671. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
  672. Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
  673. Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
  674. Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
  675. Orlando – Virginia Woolf
  676. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
  677. The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
  678. The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
  679. Quartet – Jean Rhys
  680. Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
  681. Quicksand – Nella Larsen
  682. Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
  683. Nadja – André Breton
  684. Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
  685. Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
  686. To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
  687. Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
  688. Amerika – Franz Kafka
  689. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
  690. Blindness – Henry Green
  691. The Castle – Franz Kafka
  692. The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
  693. The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
  694. One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
  695. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
  696. The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
  697. Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
  698. Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
  699. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
  700. The Counterfeiters – André Gide
  701. The Trial – Franz Kafka
  702. The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
  703. The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
  704. Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
  705. The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
  706. The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
  707. We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
  708. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
  709. The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
  710. Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
  711. Cane – Jean Toomer
  712. Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
  713. Amok – Stefan Zweig
  714. The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
  715. The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
  716. Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
  717. Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
  718. The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
  719. Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
  720. The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
  721. Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
  722. Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
  723. Ulysses – James Joyce
  724. The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
  725. Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
  726. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
  727. Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
  728. Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
  729. Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
  730. Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
  731. The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
  732. The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
  733. Summer – Edith Wharton
  734. Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
  735. Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
  736. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
  737. Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
  738. Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
  739. The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
  740. The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
  741. Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
  742. The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
  743. The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
  744. Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
  745. Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
  746. Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
  747. Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
  748. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
  749. Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
  750. Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
  751. The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
  752. Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
  753. Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
  754. Howards End – E.M. Forster
  755. Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
  756. Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
  757. Martin Eden – Jack London
  758. Strait is the Gate – André Gide
  759. Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
  760. The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
  761. A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
  762. The Iron Heel – Jack London
  763. The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
  764. The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
  765. Mother – Maxim Gorky
  766. The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
  767. The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
  768. Young Törless – Robert Musil
  769. The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
  770. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
  771. Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
  772. Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
  773. Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
  774. Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
  775. The Golden Bowl – Henry James
  776. The Ambassadors – Henry James
  777. The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
  778. The Immoralist – André Gide
  779. The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
  780. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
  781. The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  782. Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
  783. Kim – Rudyard Kipling
  784. Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
  785. Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad                                                                                                   1800's
  786.  Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
  787. The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane  
  788. The Awakening – Kate Chopin
  789. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
  790. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
  791. The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
  792. What Maisie Knew – Henry James
  793. Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
  794. Dracula – Bram Stoker
  795. Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
  796. The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
  797. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
  798. Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
  799. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
  800. The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
  801. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  802. Born in Exile – George Gissing
  803. Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
  804. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  805. News from Nowhere – William Morris
  806. New Grub Street – George Gissing
  807. Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
  808. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
  809. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
  810. The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
  811. La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
  812. By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
  813. Hunger – Knut Hamsun
  814. The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
  815. Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
  816. Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
  817. The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
  818. The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
  819. She – H. Rider Haggard
  820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
  821. The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
  822. Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
  823. King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
  824. Germinal – Émile Zola
  825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
  826. Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
  827. Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
  828. Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
  829. The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
  830. A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
  831. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
  832. The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
  833. The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
  834. Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
  835. Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
  836. Nana – Émile Zola
  837. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  838. The Red Room – August Strindberg
  839. Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
  840. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
  841. Drunkard – Émile Zola
  842. Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
  843. Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
  844. The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
  845. The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
  846. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
  847. The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
  848. Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
  849. In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
  850. The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  851. Erewhon – Samuel Butler
  852. Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
  853. Middlemarch – George Eliot
  854. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
  855. King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
  856. He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
  857. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
  858. Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
  859. Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
  860. Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
  861. The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  862. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
  863. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
  864. Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
  865. The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
  866. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
  867. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  868. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
  869. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
  870. Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
  871. Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  872. The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
  873. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
  874. Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
  875. Silas Marner – George Eliot
  876. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
  877. On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
  878. Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
  879. The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
  880. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
  881. The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
  882. Max Havelaar – Multatuli
  883. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
  884. Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
  885. Adam Bede – George Eliot
  886. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
  887. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
  888. Hard Times – Charles Dickens
  889. Walden – Henry David Thoreau
  890. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
  891. Villette – Charlotte Brontë
  892. Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
  893. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
  894. The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
  895. The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
  896. Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
  897. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
  898. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
  899. Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
  900. Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
  901. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
  902. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
  903. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
  904. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
  905. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
  906. The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
  907. La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
  908. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
  909. The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
  910. Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
  911. The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
  912. Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
  913. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
  914. Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
  915. The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
  916. The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
  917. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
  918. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
  919. The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
  920. Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
  921. Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
  922. The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
  923. The Red and the Black – Stendhal
  924. The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
  925. Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
  926. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
  927. The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
  928. Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
  929. The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
  930. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
  931. Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  932. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
  933. Persuasion – Jane Austen
  934. Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
  935. Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
  936. Emma – Jane Austen
  937. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
  938. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
  939. The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
  940. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
  941. Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  942. Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth                                                                                         1700's
  943.  Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
  944. The Nun – Denis Diderot
  945. Camilla – Fanny Burney
  946. The Monk – M.G. Lewis
  947. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  948. The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
  949. The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
  950. The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
  951. Justine – Marquis de Sade
  952. Vathek – William Beckford
  953. The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
  954. Cecilia – Fanny Burney
  955. Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  956. Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
  957. Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  958. Evelina – Fanny Burney
  959. The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  960. Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
  961. The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
  962. A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
  963. Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
  964. The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
  965. The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
  966. Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  967. Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
  968. Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  969. Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
  970. Candide – Voltaire
  971. The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
  972. Amelia – Henry Fielding
  973. Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
  974. Fanny Hill – John Cleland
  975. Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
  976. Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
  977. Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
  978. Pamela – Samuel Richardson
  979. Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
  980. Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
  981. Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
  982. A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
  983. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
  984. Roxana – Daniel Defoe
  985. Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
  986. Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
  987. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
  988. A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift



Tuesday, July 17, 2012

PANCHATANTRA


About the Panchatantra
One of India's most influential contributions to world literature, the Panchatantra (also spelled Pañcatantra or Pañca-tantra) consists of five books of animal fables and magic tales (some 87 stories in all) that were compiled, in their current form, between the third and fifth centuries AD. It is believed that even then the stories were already ancient. The tales' self-proclaimed purpose is to educate the sons of royalty.
Although the original author's or compiler's name is unknown, an Arabic translation from about 750 AD attributes the Panchatantra to a wise man called Bidpai, which is probably a Sanskrit word meaning "court scholar."
The fables of the Panchatantra found their way to Europe through oral folklore channels and by way of Persian and Arabic translations. They substantially influenced medieval writers of fables.



  1. The Foolish Friend.
  2. Dharmabuddhi and Pâpabuddhi.
  3. The Bullock's Balls.
  4. The Gold-Giving Snake.
  5. The Dog That Went Abroad.
  6. The Brahman's Wife and the Mongoose.
  7. The Fish That Were Too Clever.
  8. The Two-Headed Weaver.
  9. The Broken Pot.
  10. The Enchanted Brahman's Son



The Foolish Friend

A king, while visiting his wives' apartments, took a monkey from a neighboring stable for a pet. He kept him constantly close at hand for his amusement, for as it is said, parrots, partridges, doves, rams, monkeys, and such creatures are a king's natural companions.
It goes without saying that the monkey, fed on the various dishes that the king gave him, grew large and was given respect by all who surrounded the king. Indeed, the king, due to his love and exceeding trust of the monkey, even gave him a sword to carry.
In the vicinity of the palace the king had a grove artfully planted with many trees of various sorts. Early in the springtime the king noticed how beautiful the grove was. Its blossoms exuded a magnificent fragrance, while swarms of bees sang praise to the god of love. Thus overcome by love, he entered the grove with his favorite wife. He ordered all his servants to wait for him at the entrance.
After having pleasantly strolling through and observing the grove, he grew tired and said to his monkey, "I want to sleep a little while in this arbor of flowers. Take care that nothing disturbs me!" Having said this, the king fell asleep.
Presently a bee, pursuing the aroma of the flowers, betel, and musk, flew up and lit on his head. Seeing this, the monkey thought angrily, "What is this? Am I to allow this common creature to bite the king before my very eyes?"
With that he proceeded to drive it away. However, in spite of the monkey's defense, the bee approached the king again and again. Finally, blinded by anger, the monkey drew his sword and struck down the bee with a single blow. However, the same blow also split the king's head.
The queen, who was sleeping next to the king jumped up in terror. Seeing the crime, she said, "Oh, oh, you foolish monkey! What have you done to the king who placed such trust in you?"
The monkey explained how it had happened, but thereafter he was shunned and scorned by everyone. Thus it is said, "Do not choose a fool for a friend, for the king was killed by a monkey."
And I say, "It is better to have a clever enemy than a foolish friend."    


Dharmabuddhi and Papabuddhi 

In a certain place there lived two friends, Dharmabuddhi, which means "having a just heart" and Pâpabuddhi, which means "having an unjust heart."
One day Pâpabuddhi thought to himself, "I am a simpleton, plagued with poverty. I am going to travel abroad with Dharmabuddhi, and earn money with his help. Then I will cheat him out of it and thus gain a good situation for myself."
One day he said to Dharmabuddhi, "Listen, friend! When you are old, which of your deeds will you be able to remember? You have never seen a foreign country, so what will you be able to tell the young people? After all, don't they say: His birth has borne no fruit, who knows not foreign lands, many languages, customs, and the like. And also: One never properly grasps knowledge, wealth, and art, until joyfully one has wandered from one land to another."
Pâpabuddhi, as soon as he had heard these words, took leave from his parents with a joyful heart, and one happy day set forth for foreign lands. Through their diligence and skill, Dharmabuddhi and Pâpabuddhi acquired great wealth on their travels. Happy, but also filled with longing, they turned homeward with their great treasure. For it is also said: For those who gain wisdom, art, and wealth in foreign lands, the absence of one hour has the length of hundreds.
As they approached their city, Pâpabuddhi said to Dharmabuddhi, "Friend, it is not prudent for us to return home with our entire treasure, for our families and relatives will want part of it. Therefore let us bury it somewhere here in the thick of the forest and take only a small part home with us. When the need arises, we can come back and get as much as we need from here. For they also say:A smart man does not show off his money, not even in small amounts, for the sight of gold will agitate even a good heart. And also: Like meat is devoured in the water by fish, on land by wild animals, and in the air by birds, he who owns money is everywhere at risk."
Upon hearing this, Dharmabuddhi said, "Yes, my friend, that is what we will do!"
After having thus buried their treasure, they both returned home and lived happily together.
However, one day at midnight Pâpabuddhi went back into the forest, took the entire treasure, refilled the hole, and returned home.
Then he went to Dharmabuddhi and said to him, "Friend, each of us has a large family, and we are suffering because we have no money. Therefore, let us go to that place and get some money."
Dharmabuddhi answered, "Yes, my friend, let us do it!"
They went there and dug up the container, but it was empty.
Then Pâpabuddhi struck himself on the head and cried out, "Aha! Dharmabuddhi! You and only you have taken the money, for the hole has been filled in again. Give me my half of what you have hidden, or I will bring action against you at the king's court."
Dharmabuddhi said, "Do not speak like that, you evildoer. I am in truth Dharmabuddhi, the one with a just heart! I would not commit such an act of thievery. After all, it is said: The person with a just heart treats another man's wife like his own mother, another man's property like a clod of earth, and all beings like himself."
Quarreling thus, they proceeded to the court where they told their stories and brought action against one another.
The top judges decreed that they submit to an Ordeal of God, but Pâpabuddhi said, "No! Such an ordeal is not just. After all, it is written: In a legal action one should seek documents. If there are no documents, then one should seek witnesses. If there are no witnesses, then wise men should prescribe an Ordeal of God. In this matter the goddess of the tree will serve as my witness. She will declare which one of us is a thief and which one an honest man."
To this they all replied, "What you say is right, for it is also written: An Ordeal of God is inappropriate where there is a witness, be he even a man of the lowest caste, to say nothing of the case where he is a god. We too are very curious about this case. Tomorrow morning we shall go with you to that place in the forest."
In the meanwhile, Pâpabuddhi returned home and said to his father, "Father! I have stolen this money from Dharmabuddhi, and one word from you will secure it for us. Without your word, we shall lose it, and I shall lose my life as well."
The father said, "Child, just tell what I have to say in order to secure it!"
Pâpabuddhi said, "Father, in thus and such a place there is a large mimosa tree. It has a hollow trunk. Go hide yourself in it. When I swear an oath there tomorrow morning, then you must reply that Dharmabuddhi is the thief."
Having made these arrangements, the next morning Pâpabuddhi bathed himself, put on a clean shirt, and went to the mimosa tree with Dharmabuddhi and the judges.
Once there, he spoke with a piercing voice, "Sun and moon, wind and fire, heaven and earth, heart and mind, day and night, sunrise and sunset, all of these, like dharma, know a man's deeds. Sublime goddess of the forest, reveal which of us is the thief!"
Then Pâpabuddhi's father, who was standing in the hollow trunk of the mimosa tree, said, "Listen! Listen! The money was taken away by Dharmabuddhi!"
Having heard this, the king's servants, their eyes opened wide with amazement, searched in their law books for an appropriate punishment for Dharmabuddhi's theft of the money.
While they were thus engaged, Dharmabuddhi himself surrounded the tree's opening with flammable material, and set it on fire. When it was well ablaze, Pâpabuddhi's father emerged from the hollow tree. His eyes streaming, he cried out bitterly.
"What is this?" they asked him.
He confessed everything, and then died. The king's servants forthwith hanged Pâpabuddhi from a branch of the mimosa tree, but they had only words of praise for Dharmabuddhi.

The Bullock's Balls

In a certain place there lived a large bullock by the name of Tîkschnabrischana, which means "having substantial balls." Because of his excessive pride, he left his herd and wandered about in the forest, tearing up the banks as he pleased and devouring the emerald-colored grass.
In this same forest there lived a jackal by the name of Pralobhaka, which means "the greedy one." One day he was sitting pleasantly with his wife on an island in the river. Tîkschnabrischana came up to this island to have a drink of water. When the jackal's wife saw the balls, she said to her husband, "Master, just look! This bullock has two pieces of meat hanging down. They will be falling off immediately, at the least in a few hours. Take heed of this, and follow him."
The jackal answered, "Loved one, there is nothing certain about their falling off. Why do you ask me to set forth on such a futile task? Let me stay here with you, and together we can eat the mice that come here to drink. This is their pathway. If I leave you to follow the bullock, then someone else will come here and take over this spot. It is not a good idea, for it is said: He who gives up a sure thing for an uncertainty will lose the sure thing, and the uncertainty will remain just that."
The jackal's wife said, "Oh, you are a low-spirited creature. You are satisfied with the worst things that you can find. They also say:It is easy to fill a little brook and also the paws of a little mouse. Ordinary people are easily satisfied. They are pleased with the smallest things. For this reason a good man must always be active. They also say: With every beginning there is a will to act. Avoid idleness, and join the community of the intelligent and the powerful. Think not that fate alone rules. Cease not to work. Without effort the sesame seed will not give up its oil. And further: A foolish man is happy with little. His heart is satisfied just thinking of wealth. It is thus not appropriate for you to say, 'It is uncertain, whether or not they will fall off.' It is also said: Active people deserve praise. Those with pride will be praised. What sort of scoundrel will wait until Indra brings him water? Furthermore, I am mightily tired of eating mouse meat. These two pieces of meat look as though they will soon fall off. You must follow him. Nothing else will do!"
After hearing all this, the jackal left his mouse catching, and followed after Tîkschnabrischana. They rightly say: A man is master in all things, until he lets his will be turned by a woman's words. And further: The impossible seems possible, the unachievable easily achieved, and the inedible edible to the man who is spurred on by a woman's words.
Thus, together with his wife, he followed the bullock a long time, but the two balls did not fall off.
In the fifteenth year, the jackal finally said wearily to his wife, "Fifteen years, my love, I have kept my eyes on those hanging things to see whether or not they are going to fall off, but they still hold fast. Nor will they fall off in the future. Let us return to catching mice!"



The Gold-Giving Snake

In a certain place there lived a Brahman by the name of Haridatta. He tilled the soil, but his time in the field brought him no harvest. Then one day, as the hottest hours were just over, tormented by the heat, he lay down in the shade of a tree in the middle of his field for a sleep. He saw a frightful snake, decorated with a large hood, crawl from an anthill a little way off, and thought to himself, "This is surely the goddess of the field, and I have not once paid her homage. That is why the field remains barren. I must bring her an offering." After thus thinking it over, he got some milk, poured it into a basin, then went to the anthill, and said, "Oh, protector of this field, for a long time I did not know that you live here. For this reason I have not yet brought you an offering. Please forgive me!"
Having said this, he set forth the milk, and went home. The next day he returned to see what had happened, and he found a dinar in the basin. And thus it continued day by day. He brought the snake milk, and always found a dinar there the next morning.
One day the Brahman asked his son to take the milk to the anthill, and he himself went into the village. The son brought the milk, set it there, and returned home. When he came back the next day and found a dinar, he said to himself, "This anthill must be full of gold dinars. I will kill the snake and take them all at once!"
Having decided this, the Brahman's son returned the next day with the milk and a club. As he gave the milk to the snake, he struck her on the head with the club. The snake, as fate willed it, escaped with her life. Filled with rage, she bit the boy with her sharp, poisoned teeth, and the boy fell dead at once. His people built a funeral pyre not far from the field and cremated him.
Two days later his father returned. When he discovered under what circumstances his son had died, he said that justice had prevailed. The next morning, he once again took milk, went to the anthill, and praised the snake with a loud voice. A good while later the snake appeared in the entrance to the anthill, and said, "You come here from greed, letting even your grief for your son pass by. From now on friendship between you and me will no longer be possible. Your son, in his youthful lack of understanding, struck me. I bit him. How can I forget the club's blow? How can you forget the pain and sorrow for your son?" After saying this she gave him a costly pearl for a pearl chain, said, "Do not come back," and disappeared into her cave.
The Brahman took the pearl, cursed his son's lack of understanding, and returned home.

The Dog That Went Abroad

In a certain place there once lived a dog by the name of Tschitranga, which means "having a spotted body." A lengthy famine set in. Because they had no food, the dogs and other animals began to leave their families. Tschitranga, whose throat was emaciated with hunger, was driven by fear to another country. There in a certain city he went to a certain house day after day where, due to the carelessness of the housekeeper, many good things to eat were left lying about, and he ate his fill. However, upon leaving the house, other vicious dogs surrounded him on all sides and tore into him on all parts of his body with their teeth. Then he reconsidered his situation, and said, "It is better at home. Even during a famine you can live there in peace, and no one bites you to pieces. I will return to my own city."
Having thus thought it through, set forth to his own city. When he arrived there, all of his relatives asked him, "Tschitranga, tell us about where you have been. What is the country like? How do the people behave? What do they eat? What do they do?"
He answered, "How can I explain to you the essence of a foreign place? There are good things to eat in great variety, and housekeepers who do not keep watch! There is only one evil in a foreign country: You will be hated there because of who you are!"

The Brahman's Wife and the Mongoose

In a certain city there lived a Brahman by the name of Devasarman. His wife gave birth to a son, and then to a mongoose. Full of love for her children, she cared for the mongoose like a son, nursing him at her breast, rubbing him with salve, and so forth. However, she did not trust him, thinking that in keeping with the evil nature of his species he might harm her son.
As is rightly said: A son will bring joy to his parents' heart, even if he is uneducated, bad, malformed, foolish, and sinful. And as also is said: Sandalwood salve cools and soothes, but a son's embrace far excels sandalwood salve. The relationship with one's son is more important than that with a best friend, a good father, or any other person.
One day, after nicely tucking the boy into his bed, she took the water pitcher and said to her husband, "Listen, master, I am going to the pond to fetch water. You must protect our son from the mongoose."
After she departed, the Brahman went off somewhere to collect alms, leaving the house empty. In the meantime a black snake crept out of its hole and -- as fate would have it -- approached the boy's bed. However, the mongoose confronted this, his natural enemy, and fearing that it might kill his brother, the mongoose attacked the wicked snake, tore it to bits, and threw the pieces far and wide.
Proud of his valor and his face covered with blood, the mongoose approached the mother to tell her what had happened.
However, the mother, seeing his blood-spattered face and sensing his excitement, feared, "without doubt this evildoer has devoured our son." Driven by anger and without further investigation she threw the water-filled pitcher at the mongoose, killing the him instantly.
Paying no further attention to the mongoose, she rushed into the house where she found the boy still asleep. Near the bed she saw a large black snake, torn to bits. Then her heart was overcome with sorrow because of the thoughtless murder of her praiseworthy son, the mongoose, and she beat herself on the head, the breast, and her other body parts.
While this was happening the Brahman returned home with alms from wherever he had been begging.
"See there!" she cried, overcome with grief for her son, the mongoose. "Oh, you greedy one! Because you let greed rule you instead of doing what I told you to, you now must taste the fruit of your own tree of sin, the pain of your son's death."

The Fish That Were Too Clever

Two fish lived in a pond. Their names were Satabuddhi (having the understanding of a hundred) and Sahasrabuddhi (having the understanding of a thousand). The two of them had a frog for a friend, whose name was Ekabuddhi (having the understanding of one).
For a time they would enjoy friendly conversation on the bank, and then they would return to the water. One day when they had gathered for conversation, some fishermen came by just as the sun was setting. They were carrying nets in their hands and many dead fish on their heads.
When the fishermen saw the pond, they said to one another, "There seem to be a lot of fish in this pond, and the water is very low. Let us come back here tomorrow morning!" After saying this, they went home.
These words struck the three friends like a thunderbolt, and they took counsel with one another.
The frog said, "Oh, my dear Satabuddhi and Sahasrabuddhi, what shall we do? Should we flee, or stay here?"
Hearing this, Sahasrabuddhi laughed and said, "Oh, my friend, don't be afraid of words alone! They probably will not come back. But even if they do come back, I will be able to protect myself and you as well, through the power of my understanding, for I know many pathways through the water."
After hearing this, Satabuddhi said, "Yes, what Sahasrabuddhi says is correct, for one rightly says: Where neither the wind nor the sun's rays have found a way, intelligent understanding will quickly make a path. And also: Everything on earth is subject to the understanding of those with intelligence. Why should one abandon the place of one's birth that has been passed down from generation to generation, just because of words? We must not retreat a single step! I will protect you through the power of my understanding."
The frog said, "I have but one wit, and it is advising me to flee. This very day I shall go with my wife to another pond."
After saying this, as soon as it was night, the frog went to another pond.
Early the next day the fishermen came like servants of the god of death and spread their nets over the pond. All the fish, turtles, frogs, crabs, and other water creatures were caught in the nets and captured, also Satabuddhi and Sahasrabuddhi, although they fled, and through their knowledge of the various paths escaped for a while by swimming to and fro. But they too, together with their wives, fell into a net and were killed.
That afternoon the fishermen happily set forth toward home. Because of his weight, one of them carried Satabuddhi on his head. They tied Sahasrabuddhi onto a string and dragged him along behind.
The frog Ekabuddhi, who had climbed onto the bank of his pond, said to his wife, "Look, dear! Mr. Hundred-Wit lies on someone's head, and Mr. Thousand-Wit is hanging from a string. But Mr. Single-Wit, my dear, is playing here in the clear water."

The Two-Headed Weaver

In a certain place there lived a weaver by the name of Mantharaka, which means "the simpleton." One day, while weaving cloth, the wooden pieces on his loom broke. He took an ax, and set forth to find some wood. He found a large sissoo tree at the ocean's shore, and said aloud, "Now this is a large tree. If I fell it, I will have wood enough for all my weaving tools."
Having thus thought it through, he raised his ax to begin cutting. However, a spirit lived in this tree, and he said, "Listen! This tree is my home, and it must be spared in any event, because I like it here where my body can be stroked by the cool breezes that blow in from the ocean's waves."
The weaver said, "Then what am I to do? If I don't find a good tree, then my family will starve. You will have to go somewhere else. I am going to cut it down."
The spirit answered, "Listen, I am at your service. Ask whatever you would like, but spare this tree!"
The weaver said, "If that is what you want then I will go home and ask my friend and my wife, and when I return, you must give me what I ask for."
The spirit promised, and the weaver, beside himself with joy, returned home. Upon his arrival in his city he saw his friend, the barber, and said, "Friend, I have gained control over a spirit. Tell me what I should demand from him!"
The barber said, "My dear friend, if that is so then you should demand a kingdom. You could be king, and I would be your prime minister, and we two would first enjoy the pleasures of this world and then those of the next one. For they say: A prince who piously gives to others, achieves fame in this world, and through these good deeds, he will arrive in heaven, equal to the gods themselves."
The weaver spoke, "Friend, so be it! But let us also ask my wife."
The barber said, "One should never ask women for advice. They also say: A wise man gives women food, clothing, jewelry, and above all the duties of marriage, but he never asks for their advice. And further: That house must perish where a woman, a gambler, or a child is listened to. And: A man will advance and be loved by worthy people as long as he does not secretly listen to women. Women think only of their own advantage, of their own desires. Even if they love only their own son, still, he will serve their wishes."
The weaver spoke, "Even though this is true, she nonetheless must be asked, because she is subservient to her husband."
Having said this, he went quickly to his wife and said to her, "Dear one, today I have gained control over a spirit who will grant me one wish. Hence I have come to ask for your advice. Tell me, what should I ask for? My friend the barber thinks that I should request a kingdom."
She answered, "Oh, son of your excellence, what do barbers understand? You should never do what they say. After all, it is stated:A reasonable person will no sooner take advice from dancers, singers, the low born, barbers, or children, than from beggars.Furthermore, a king's life is an unending procession of annoyances. He must constantly worry about friendships, animosities, wars, servants, defense alliances, and duplicity. He never gets a moment's rest, because: Anyone who wants to rule must prepare his spirit for misfortune. The same container that is used for salve can also be used to pour out bad luck. Never envy the life of a king."
The weaver said, "You are right. But what should I ask for?"
She answered, "You can now work on only one piece of cloth at a time. That is barely enough to pay for the necessities. You should ask for another pair of arms and a second head so that you can work on two pieces of cloth at once, one in front of you, and one behind you. We can sell the one for household necessities, and you can use the money from the second one for other things. You will thus gain the praise of your relatives, and you will make gains in both worlds."
After hearing this he spoke with joy, "Good, you faithful wife! You have spoken well, and I will do what you say. That is my decision."
With that he went to the spirit and let his will be known, "Listen, if you want to fulfill my wish, then give me another pair of arms and another head."
He had barely spoken before he was two-headed and four-armed. Rejoicing, he returned home, but the people there thought that he was a demon and beat him with sticks and stones, until he fell over dead.
And that is why I say: He who cannot think for himself and will not follow the advice of friends, he will push himself into misfortune, just like the weaver Mantharaka.

The Broken Pot

In a certain place there lived a Brahman by the name of Svabhâvakripana, which means "luckless by his very nature." By begging he acquired a quantity of rice gruel, and after he had eaten what he wanted, there was still a potful left. He hung this pot on a nail in the wall above his bed. As night progressed, he could not take his eyes from the pot. All the while he was thinking:
This pot is filled to overflowing with rice gruel. If a famine should come to the land, then I could sell it for a hundred pieces of silver. Then I could buy a pair of goats. They have kids every six months, so I would soon have an entire herd of goats. Then I would trade the goats for cattle. As soon as the cows had calved, I would sell the calves. Then I would trade the cattle for buffalo. And the buffalo for horses. And when the horses foaled, I would own many horses. From their sale I would gain a large amount of gold. With this gold I would buy a house with four buildings in a rectangle.
Then a Brahman would enter my house and give me a very beautiful girl with a large dowry for my wife. She will give birth to a son, and I will give him the name Somasarman. When he is old enough to be bounced on my knee, I will take a book, sit in the horse stall, and read. In the meantime, Somasarman will see me and want to be bounced on my knee. He will climb down from his mother's lap and walk toward me, coming close to the horses hooves. Then, filled with anger, I will shout at my wife, "Take the child! Take the child!"
But she, busy with her housework, will not hear me. So I will jump up and give her a kick!
And, buried in his thoughts, he struck out with his foot, breaking the pot, and painting himself white with the rice gruel that had been in it. Therefore I say:
He who dreams about unrealistic projects for the future will have the same fate as Somasarman's father: He will find himself lying there painted white with rice gruel.

The Enchanted Brahman's Son

In the city of Radschagriha there lived a Brahman by the name of Devasarman. His childless wife wept bitterly whenever she saw the neighbors' children. One day the Brahman said to her, "Dear one, stop your grieving. Behold, I was offering a sacrifice for the birth of a son when an invisible being said to me in the clearest words, 'Brahman, you shall be granted this son, and he shall surpass all men in beauty and virtue, and good fortune shall be his.'"
After hearing this, the Brahman's wife was overjoyed, and she said, "Such promises must come true." In the course of time she became pregnant and gave birth to a snake. When her attendants saw it, they all cried out, "Throw it away!" However, she paid no attention to them, but instead picked it up, had it bathed, and -- filled with a mother's love toward her son -- laid it in a large, clean container, fed it milk, fresh butter, and the like, so that within a few days it had reached its full growth.
Once when the Brahman's wife witnessed the wedding feast of a neighbor's son, her eyes clouded over with tears, and she said to her husband, "You treat me with contempt, because you are not making any effort at all to arrange a wedding for my dear child!"
When he heard this, the Brahman said, "Honored one! To achieve that I would have to go to the depths of hell and beseech Pasuki, the King of Snakes, for who else, you fool, would give his daughter in marriage to a snake?"
Having said this, he looked at his wife with her exceedingly sad face, and -- for the sake of her love and in order to pacify her -- he took some travel provisions and departed for a foreign land. After traveling about for several months he came to a place by the name of Kukutanagara. There, as evening fell, he was received by an acquaintance, a member of his caste. He was given a bath, food, and every necessity, and he spent the night there.
The next morning he took leave and was preparing to set forth once again, when his host said, "What brought you to this place, and where are you going now."
The Brahman answered, "I have come to seek an appropriate bride for my son."
After hearing this, the host said, "If that is the case, then I have a very appropriate daughter. I have only respect for you. Take her for your son!"
Acting upon these words, the Brahman took the girl, together with her servants, and returned to his home city. However, when the inhabitants of this region saw the girl, who was beautiful, gifted, and charming beyond comparison, they opened their eyes wide with love for her, and said to her attendants, "How could you deliver such a jewel of a girl to a snake?"
After hearing this, all of her companions were horrified, and they said, "She must be rescued from the murderer set up by this old Brahman."
Hearing this, the maiden said, "Spare me from such deception, for behold: Kings speak but once. The virtuous speak but once. A girl is promised in marriage but once. These three things happen but once. And further: Not even wise men and gods can change the decrees of fate. And moreover, my father shall not be reproached for his daughter's falseness."
Having said that, and with the permission of her attendants, she married the snake. She showed him proper respect, and served him milk and similar things.
One night the snake left his large basket, which was kept in the bedroom, and climbed into his wife's bed. She cried out, "Who is this creature, shaped like a man?"
Thinking it was a strange man, she jumped up.
Shaking all over, she tore open the door and wanted to rush away, when the snake said, "Dear one! Stay here! I am your husband!"
To convince her of this, he once again entered the body that he had left in the basket, then left it again. He was wearing a magnificent diadem, rings, bands, and bracelets on his upper and lower arms. His wife fell at his feet. Then together they partook of the joys of love.
His father, the Brahman, had arisen earlier than his son, and saw everything. He took the snake skin, which was lying in the basket, and burned it in the fire, saying, "He shall not enter it again." Later that morning, filled with joy, he presented his son to his family. Vitalized by unending love, he became an ideal son.