Thinker's Library


The Thinker's Library was a series of 140 small hardcover books published between 1929 and 1951 for the Rationalist Press Association by Watts & Co., London, a company founded by Charles Albert Watts. 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. Many of the titles were cheap reprints of classic books, aimed at a mass audience.

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.
  1. "First and Last Things" by H. G. Wells
  2. "Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical" by Herbert Spencer
  3. "The Riddle of the Universe" by Ernst Haeckel
  4. "Humanity's Gain from Unbelief, and Other Selections from the Works of Charles Bradlaugh"
  5. "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill
  6. "A Short History of the World" by H. G. Wells
  7. "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin" by Charles Darwin
  8. "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin
  9. "Twelve Years in a Monastery" by Joseph McCabe
  10. "History of Modern Philosophy" by A. W. Benn
  11. "Gibbon on Christianity" – chapters 15 and 16 of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
  12. "The Descent of Man" – Part 1 and the concluding chapter of Part 3, by Charles Darwin
  13. "History of Civilization in England" – Vol. I, by Henry Thomas Buckle
  14. "Anthropology" – Vol. I, by Sir Edward B. Tylor
  15. "Anthropology" – Vol. II, by Sir Edward B. Tylor
  16. "Iphigenia" – Two plays, by Euripides, translated by C. B. Bonner
  17. "Lectures and Essays" by Thomas Henry Huxley
  18. "The Evolution of the Idea of God" by Grant Allen
  19. "An Agnostic's Apology, and Other Essays" by Sir Leslie Stephen
  20. "The Churches and Modern Thought" by Vivian Phelips
  21. "Penguin Island" by Anatole France
  22. "The Pathetic Fallacy" by Llewelyn Powys
  23. "Historical Trials " by Sir John MacDonell
  24. "A Short History of Christianity" by J. M. Robertson
  25. "The Martyrdom of Man" by Winwood Reade
  26. "Head-hunters, Black, White, and Brown" by Alfred C. Haddon
  27. "The Evidence for the Supernatural" by Ivor Ll. Tuckett
  28. "The City of Dreadful Night and other poems" – A selection from the poetical works of James Thomson
  29. "In the Beginning: The Origin of Civilisation" by G. Elliot Smith
  30. "Adonis: a Study in the History of Oriental Religion" – from The Golden Bough by Sir James G. Frazer
  31. "Our New Religion" by H. A. L. Fisher
  32. "On Compromise" by John Morley
  33. "A History of the Taxes on Knowledge" by Collet Dobson Collet
  34. "The Existence of God" by Joseph McCabe
  35. "The Story of the Bible" by MacLeod Yearsley
  36. "Savage Survivals: The Story of the Race Told in Simple Languages" by J. Howard Moore
  37. "The Revolt of the Angels" by Anatole France
  38. "The Outcast" by Winwood Reade
  39. "Penalties Upon Opinion" by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner
  40. "Oath, Curse, and Blessing" by Ernest Crawley
  41. "Fireside Science" by Sir E. Ray Lankester
  42. "History of Anthropology" by Alfred C. Haddon
  43. "The World's Earliest Laws" by Chilperic Edwards
  44. "Fact and Faith" by J. B. S. Haldane
  45. "The Men of the Dawn" by Dorothy Davison
  46. "The Mind in the Making" by James Harvey Robinson
  47. "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" by Charles Darwin
  48. "Psychology for Everyman " by A. E. Mander
  49. "The Religion of the Open Mind" by Adam Gowans Whyte
  50. "Letters on Reasoning" by J. M. Robertson
  52. "The Social Record of Christianity" by Joseph McCabe
  53. "Five Stages of Greek religion: Studies Based on a Course of Lectures Delivered in April 1912 at Columbia University" by Gilbert Murray
  54. "The Life of Jesus" by Ernest Renan
  55. "Selected Works of Voltaire" by Joseph McCabe
  56. "What are we to do with our lives?" by H. G. Wells
  57. "Do What You Will" by Aldous Huxley
  58. "Clearer Thinking " by A. E. Mander
  59. "History of Ancient Philosophy" by A. W. Benn
  60. "Your Body: How it is built and how it works" by D. Stark Murray
  61. "What is Man?" by Mark Twain
  62. "Man and His Universe" by John Langdon-Davies
  63. "First Principles" by Herbert Spencer
  64. "Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine
  65. "This Human Nature" by Charles Duff
  66. "Dictionary of Scientific Terms as Used in the Various Sciences" by Charles Marsh Beadnell
  67. "A Book of Good Faith" by Montaigne
  68. "The Universe of Science" by Hyman Levy
  69. "Liberty To-day" by C. E. M. Joad
  70. "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine
  71. "The Fair Haven" by Samuel Butler
  72. "A Candidate for Truth: Passages from Emerson"
  73. "A Short History of Women" by John Langdon-Davies
  74. "Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings" by Henry Maudsley
  75. "Morals, Manners, and Men" by Havelock Ellis
  76. "Pages from a Lawyer's Notebooks" by E. S. P. Haynes
  77. "An Architect of Nature" – The autobiography of Luther Burbank
  78. "Act of God" by F. Tennyson Jesse
  79. "The Man versus The State" by Herbert Spencer
  80. "The World as I See It" by Albert Einstein
  81. "Jocasta's Crime: An Anthropological Study" by Lord Raglan
  82. "The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales" by Richard Garnett
  83. "Kingship" by A. M. Hocart
  84. "Religion Without Revelation" by Julian Huxley
  85. "Let the People Think" by Bertrand Russell
  86. "The Myth of the Mind" by Frank Kenyon
  87. "The Liberty of Man and Other Essays" by Robert G. Ingersoll
  88. "Man Makes Himself" by V. Gordon Childe
  89. "World Revolution and the Future of the West" by W. Friedmann
  90. "The Origin of the Kiss and Other Scientific Diversions" by Charles Marsh Beadnell
  91. "The Bible and its Background. Vol. I." by Archibald Robertson
  92. "The Bible and its Background. Vol. II." by Archibald Robertson
  93. "The Conquest of Time" by H. G. Wells
  94. "The Gospel of Rationalism" by Charles T. Gorham
  95. "Life's Unfolding" by Sir Charles Sherrington
  96. "An easy Outline of Astronomy" by M. Davidson
  97. "The God of the Bible" by Evans Bell
  98. "Man Studies Life" by G. N. Ridley
  100. "" by A. D. Howell Smith
  101. "The Outlines of Mythology" by Lewis Spence
  103. "Magic and Religion" by Sir James G. Frazer
  104. "Flight from Conflict" by Laurence Collier
  105. "Progress and Archaeology" by V. Gordon Childe
  106. "The Chemistry of Life" by J. S. D. Bacon
  107. "Medicine and Mankind" by Arnold Sorsby
  108. "The Church and Social Progress" by Marjorie Bowen
  109. "The Great Mystics" by George Godwin
  110. "The Religion of Ancient Mexico" by Lewis Spence
  111. "Geology in the Life of Man" by Duncan Leitch
  112. "A Century for Freedom" by Kenneth Urwin
  114. "" by Archibald Robertson
  115. The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays" by William Kingdon Clifford
  116. "Human Nature, War and Society" by John Cohen
  117. "The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice" by L. T. Hobhouse
  118. "Man: The Verdict of Science" by G. N. Ridley
  119. "The Distressed Mind" by J. A. C. Brown
  120. "The Illusion of National Character" by Hamilton Fyfe
  121. "Population, Psychology, and Peace" by J. C. Flugel
  122. "Friar's Lantern" by G. G. Coulton
  123. "Ideals and Illusions" by L. Susan Stebbing
  124. "An Outline of the Development of Science" by M. Mansel Davies
  125. "Head and Hand in Ancient Greece: Four Studies in the Social Relations of Thought" by Benjamin Farrington
  126. "The Evolution of Society" by J. A. C. Brown
  127. "Background to Modern Thought" by C. D. Hardie
  128. "The Holy Heretics: The Story of the Albigensian Crusade" by Edmond Holmes
  129. "Man His Own Master" by Archibald Robertson
  130. "Men Without Gods" by Hector Hawton
  131. "The Earliest Englishman" by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward
  132. "Astronomy for Beginners" by Martin Davidson
  133. "The Search for Health" by D. Stark Murray
  134. "The Mystery of Anna Berger" by George Godwin
  135. "Wrestling Jacob" by Marjorie Bowen
  136. "The Origins of Religion" by Lord Raglan
  137. "The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama" by Lord Raglan
  138. "The Life of John Knox" by Marjorie Bowen
  139. "The French Revolution" by Archibald Robertson
  140. "The Art of Thought" by Graham Wallas
  141. "Literary Style and Music" by Herbert Spencer
  142. "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin
  143. "The Science of Heredity" by J. S. D. Bacon
  144. "The Great Revivalists" by George Godwin