The Nobel Prize for Literature in 1908 was awarded to Rudolf Eucken, a German idealist philosopher.

Two children’s classics were published in 1908: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Anne of Green Gables is THE classic girls’ fiction book, along with Little Women. I can’t imagine any girl growing up without reading or listening to or, at the very least, watching, Anne’s adventures on Prince Edward Island at Green Gables.

A.A. Milne said of Grahame’s book:

“For the last ten or twelve years I have been recommending it. Usually I speak about at my first meeting with a stranger. It is my opening remark, just as yours is something futile about the weather. If I don’t get it in at the beginning, I squeeze it in at the end. The stranger has got to have it sometime. One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and, if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can’t criticize it, because it is criticizing us. But I must give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don’t be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgment on my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgment on yourself. You may be worthy: I don’t know, But it is you who are on trial.”

I think I pass the test. I love Toad’s antics and Mole’s homely good natured love of all things domestic. And Rat’s “messing about in boats.”

Other Books Critically Acclaimed and Historically significant:
Vladimir Lenin, Materialism and Empirico-Criticism
E. M. Forster, A Room with a View
Mohandas Gandhi, Hind Swaraj
G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday. Chesterton takes on anarchy and wins with humor.
Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Circular Staircase. Read more about Ms. Rinehart’s early attempt at murder mystery.
Maurice Maeterlinck, The Bluebird.