Philopsychy Press Self-Publishing Aids
Some Self-Published Classics
The following list of self-published books whose reputation merits calling them "classics" was compiled from information found in the reference works by Henderson (pp.3-26) and Mathieu (p.284). This impressive list should ease the minds of those who are concerned that self-publishing their book will automatically consign it to the domain of the unknown. The list is presented here in alphabetical order by author's surname.
- John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations (1855).
- William Blake, Songs of Innocence (1789), and most of his other books.
- Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes (1914, self-published from 1931) and numerous other books (via his "Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc." imprint).
- Lord Byron, Fugitive Pieces (1806) and Poems on Various Occasions (1812).
- Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia.
- Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1892).
- Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health (1875).
- Carla Emery, The Old Fashioned Recipe Book.
- Edward Fitzgerald, tr. of Omar Khayyam's The Rubaiyat (1859).
- Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879).
- Zane Grey, Betty Zane (1904).
- Archibald Clavering Gunter, Mr. Barnes of New York (1887), and 38 other novels (via his "Home Publishing Company" imprint).
- William Hope Harvey, Coins Financial School (1894).
- Washington Irving, History of New York (1809).
- James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).
- D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love (1920) and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928).
- William Morris, The Story of Glittering Plain (1891, via his "Kelmscott Press" imprint).
- Anais Nin, Winter of Artifice (1939, self-published from 1941) and several other books.
- Thomas Paine, The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772) and Common Sense (1776).
- Edgar Allen Poe, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827).
- Ezra Pound, A Lume Spento (1907).
- Henry M. Robert, Robert's Rules of Order (1876).
- Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Torrent and The Night Before (1896).
- Carl Sandburg, Reckless Ecstasy (1904).
- Percy Bysshe Shelly, The Necessity of Atheism (1811).*
- Upton Sinclair, Springtime and Harvest (1901), The Jungle (1906), and several other books.
- William Strunk, Elements of Style (1918).
- Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn (1885).
- Kate Douglas Wiggin, The Story of Patsy (1882) and Bird's Christmas Carol (1887).
- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855).
- Virginia Woolf, Kew Gardens (1919) and numerous other books (via her and her husband's "Hogarth Press" imprint).
Henderson and Mathieu cite numerous other authors who self-published at least one of their books, including: Theodore Dreiser, T.S. Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Rod McKuen, Eugene O'Neill, and George Bernard Shaw.
*Henderson (p.10) notes: "Shelly was expelled from Oxford for his self-publishing efforts."
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