Thinker's Library


The Thinker's Library was a series of 140 hardcover books published between 1929 and 1951 for the Rationalist Press Association by Watts & Co., London, a company founded by the brothers John and Charles Watts and then run by the latter's son Charles Albert Watts. The name was suggested by Archibald Robertson, a member of the company's board of directors, who took an active interest in setting up the series and was later to write several volumes himself. The Thinker’s Library was intended as a successor to the cheap paperback “Sixpenny Reprints” from the same publisher, the aim being to bring humanist, philosophical and scientific works to as wide an audience as possible. Unlike the previous series, the volumes in the Thinker’s Library were small hardbacks bound in brown clothette, with grey dustjackets, priced at one shilling. The covers of the early editions featured title, author’s name and a brief description of the book between Doric columns, with the image of Rodin’s The Thinker at the foot. The design would change several times over the course of the series, but the figure of the Thinker remained ever-present.
The library covered a wide range of subjects with a broadly humanist slant. The lists of titles occasionally published in individual volumes were arranged under these headings: General Philosophy, Psychology, Anthropology, General Science, Religion, History, Fiction and Miscellaneous. The last group included collections of essays by several writers, drama, poetry and memoirs. The focus was initially on reprints, often abridgements of, or selections from, longer works from well-known free-thinking writers; Darwin, J. S. Mill, H. G. Wells and Herbert Spencer were among those represented in the first ten volumes. However, as the series continued it focused more and more on original titles. The first of these to be published in the series was A. E. Mander’s Psychology for Everyman in 1935; reprinted several times, it was to sell over 400,000 copies, and was followed by the same author’s Clearer Thinking: Logic for Everyman the following year. Further original titles were contributed by J. A. C. Brown, Adam Gowans Whyte, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward and George Godwin, among others, and it was Godwin's The Great Revivalists that brought the series to a close in 1951.

List of titles

Dates given are of first publication in the Thinker's Library. Abridgements of longer works are indicated by an asterisk.
  1. First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life by H. G. Wells
  2. Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical by Herbert Spencer
  3. The Riddle of the Universe by Ernst Haeckel. Translated by Joseph McCabe
  4. Humanity's Gain from Unbelief, and Other Selections from the Works of Charles Bradlaugh. With prefatory note by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner
  5. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
  6. A Short History of the World by H. G. Wells
  7. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. With two appendices by his son Sir Francis Darwin
  8. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Last edition
  9. Twelve Years in a Monastery by Joseph McCabe. Third and revised edition
  10. History of Modern Philosophy by A. W. Benn
  11. Gibbon on Christianity: being the 15th and 16th chapters of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. With an introduction by J. M. Robertson
  12. The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin. Part 1 and the concluding chapter of Part 3, with a preface by Major Leonard Darwin
  13. History of Civilization in England by Henry Thomas Buckle *
  14. Anthropology by Sir Edward B. Tylor. With an introduction by A. C. Haddon
  15. Anthropology by Sir Edward B. Tylor
  16. Iphigenia: Two plays by Euripides. Translated by C. B. Bonner. Contains the plays Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris
  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: An Inquiry into the Grounds of Unbelief and an Appeal for Candour by Vivian Phelips
  21. Penguin Island by Anatole France. Translated by A. W. Evans
  22. The Pathetic Fallacy: A Study of Christianity by Llewelyn Powys
  23. Historical Trials: A Selection by Sir John MacDonell, K. C. B. Edited by R. Lee, with a preface by Lord Shaw of Dunfermline *
  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 A. C. Haddon *
  27. The Evidence for the Supernatural: A Critical Study made with 'Uncommon Sense by Ivor Ll. Tuckett *
  28. The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems: A selection from the Poetical Works of James Thomson . With a preface by Henry S. Salt
  29. In the Beginning: The Origin of Civilisation by G. Elliot Smith
  30. Adonis: a Study in the History of Oriental Religion by Sir James G. Frazer. From Part IV of The Golden Bough *
  31. Our New Religion by H. A. L. Fisher
  32. On Compromise by John Morley
  33. A History of the Taxes on Knowledge: Their Origin and Repeal by Collet Dobson Collet. Introduction by George Jacob Holyoake *
  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 Language by J. Howard Moore
  37. The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France. Translated by Mrs Wilfrid Jackson
  38. The Outcast by Winwood Reade
  39. Penalties Upon Opinion: or Some Records of the laws of Heresy and Blasphemy by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner. Revised and enlarged by F. W. Read
  40. Oath, Curse, and Blessing: and other Studies in Origins by Ernest Crawley. Edited by Theodore Besterman
  41. Fireside Science by Sir E. Ray Lankester. Selected and prepared by C. M. Beadnell
  42. History of Anthropology by A. C. Haddon
  43. The World's Earliest Laws by Chilperic Edwards
  44. Fact and Faith by J. B. S. Haldane
  45. Men of the Dawn: The Story of Man’s Evolution to the End of the Old Stone Age by Dorothy Davison
  46. The Mind in the Making by James Harvey Robinson. With an introduction by H. G. Wells
  47. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin. Revised and abridged by C. M. Beadnell *
  48. Psychology for Everyman by A. E. Mander
  49. The Religion of the Open Mind by Adam Gowans Whyte. Foreword by Eden Philpotts
  50. Letters on Reasoning by J. M. Robertson *
  52. 51>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. Translated with an introduction by Joseph McCabe
  56. What are we to do with our lives? by H. G. Wells
  57. Do What You Will: Essays 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. With an introduction by S. K. Ratcliffe
  62. Man and His Universe by John Langdon-Davies
  63. First Principles by Herbert Spencer. Sixth and final edition, with an introduction by T. W. Hill
  64. Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution by Thomas Paine. Edited by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, with an introduction by G.D.H. Cole
  65. This Human Nature: A History, A Commentary, An Exposition by Charles Duff *
  66. Dictionary of Scientific Terms as Used in the Various Sciences by C. M. Beadnell
  67. A Book of Good Faith by Montaigne. Chosen and arranged by Gerald Bullett
  68. The Universe of Science by H. Levy. Revised and expanded edition
  69. Liberty To-day by C. E. M. Joad. Revised edition
  70. The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
  71. The Fair Haven by Samuel Butler. With an introduction by Gerald Bullett
  72. A Candidate for Truth: Passages from Emerson. Chosen and arranged by Gerald Bullett 
  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. With a biographical sketch by Wilbur Hall
  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. Translated by Alan Harris
  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 C. M. Beadnell
  91. The Bible and its Background by Archibald Robertson
  92. The Bible and its Background by Archibald Robertson
  93. The Conquest of Time by H. G. Wells. Written to replace his First and Last Things
  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: A Searching Study of the Christian Creed by Evans Bell. First published as “Task of To-day”
  98. Man Studies Life: The Story of Biology by G. N. Ridley
  100. 98>' by A. D. Howell Smith
  101. The Outlines of Mythology by Lewis Spence
  103. 100>Magic and Religion: Being chapters I to VII of the abridged edition of The Golden Bough by Sir James G. Frazer. With foreword by Prof. G. M. Trevelyan *
  104. Flight from Conflict by Laurence Collier
  105. Progress and Archaeology by V. Gordon Childe
  106. The Chemistry of Life: An Easy Outline of Biochemistry by J. S. D. Bacon
  107. Medicine and Mankind by Arnold Sorsby *
  108. The Church and Social Progress: An Exposition of Rationalism and Reaction 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: A Brief History of its Influence on Thought and the Development of Modern Civilization by Duncan Leitch
  112. A Century for Freedom: A Survey of the French "Philosophers" by Kenneth Urwin
  114. 110>'' by Archibald Robertson
  115. The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays by William Kingdon Clifford. Edited by Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Frederick Pollock
  116. Human Nature, War and Society by John Cohen. With a foreword by Lord Raglan
  117. The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice by L. T. Hobhouse. With a foreword by Archibald Robertson
  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. With an introduction by C. E. M. Joad
  122. Friar's Lantern by G. G. Coulton
  123. Ideals and Illusions by L. Susan Stebbing. With an introduction by Prof. A. E. Heath
  124. An Outline of the Development of Science by 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. First published as “The Albigensian or Catharist Heresy”
  129. Man His Own Master by Archibald Robertson
  130. Men Without Gods by Hector Hawton
  131. The Earliest Englishman by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward. With a foreword by Sir Arthur Keith
  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: A Study of the Life of John Wesley 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: Including Two Short Essays on Gracefulness and Beauty by Herbert Spencer
  142. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. A Reprint of the First Edition. With a foreword by Dr C. D. Darlington, F. R. S.
  143. The Science of Heredity by J. S. D. Bacon
  144. The Great Revivalists by George Godwin