June 2, 2002

In the routine life of a librarian there are only a few uplifting moments. One of these in my professional career came when I had the opportunity to dip into old familiar titles in Everyman’s stoutly bound attractive imprints complete with informative silky white jackets. Here were books I know I should have read but never had the chance to. Now they were before me, courtesy the British Council which continued to send consignments for the Millennium Library over a period of three years (1999-2002).

The British government spent more money, time and energy than any other country to commemorate the millennial change and now the whole of Britain is dotted with gleaming new libraries, bridges, gardens, museums, theatres and exhibition halls that have AD 2000 carved into their corner-stones. The Millennium Commission, which was constituted at the threshold of the new century, had on its agenda, besides other projects, a plan to reach out to larger audience and “to stimulate and inspire” the younger generation by transmitting the creative human thought as encoded in books or recorded history.

It must have been a feat to search out the best among the outstanding examples of world literature and the Commission relied on expert opinion from the education sector, the publishing industry and the media to hand-pick 250 books that could be counted as milestones of history.

A leading British publishing house, Everyman Publishers, established in 1906, offered to execute the project. It had earlier run the Dent’s series of world’s classics with its talismanic motto, “Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide”. The message thus conveyed through such a handy listing as touches all races of mankind for all time and the inevitability of their universality has been distilled into classics.

The turn of the millennium has thus been a big moment in the publishing world. Two hundred and fifty of the greatest books of the last 3000 years in an accessible and permanent form in the Everyman edition were distributed to 4,214 state secondary schools throughout the United Kingdom and to 1,500 schools and libraries in 77 countries of the developing world through the offices of the British Council.

As many as 1,500,000 books were given away. The purpose is not only to strengthen school libraries but also to implant catholic interests in young minds not yet initiated. The entire cost of the Millennium Library Scheme was 8 million.

In Pakistan, the British Council identified 25 schools/colleges/universities/libraries in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and Peshawar regions to receive this coveted gift. In Sindh — Aga Khan, Hamdard Karachi, and Sindh Universities, and The City and Karachi Grammar Schools were the recipients. The gift is worth approximately 3,000 at bookshop prices and about more than Rs3,00,000/- (in Pakistan currency) as per the government’s approved conversion rates for import of books.

This comprehensive selection is representative of the very best and epoch-making canonical works in humanities, liberal arts, social sciences and literature. It is overwhelmingly literature-oriented. Admittedly, literature holds a mirror to contemporary human life and at the same time it underpins the continuity of human civilization. Novelists perform a function so essential to the soul of the community. Steinbeck in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1962 stated, “I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature”.

Dickens’ thirteen historical novels, so critical of mid-nineteenth century England, are the mainstay of this library. Dickens’ many-sided coherent vision of English society is well depicted through his bitter satire and fierce criticism. These are followed by nine from the pen of Anthony Trollope. Outstanding editors and introductory chapters by present-day authorities have made the works appealing to the twenty-first century mind.

Achebe’s Things fall apart portrays the West African scenario, while Mishima’s The temple of the golden pavilion, Shikibu’s The tale of Genji and Tanizaki’s The Makioka sisters delineate the Japanese society in its engaging variety. Kipling’s Collected stories and Kim, and Foster’s A passage to India are set in colonial Indian background; while Naipaul in his A house for Mr Biswas autobiographically describes the life of a high-caste Hindu immigrant in West Indies.

European literature emanating from France, Germany, Italy and Russia is well represented in the outstanding works of Camus, Diderot, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Voltaire, and Zola (from France); Goethe, Grass, Kafka, Mann and Joseph Roth (from Germany); and Calvino, Dante, Herodotus, Homer, Levi, Machiavelli, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Sophocles, and Virgil (from Italy and Greece). Russian authors of the stature of Pasternak, Pushkin, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy and Turgenev predominate the European scene in their translated works. Spain’s Cervantes, Czechoslovakia’s Hasek, and Denmark’s Kierkegaard are amongst the chosen authors. Garcia Marquez, 1982 Nobel Prize winner, hails from Colombia (South America) and from the East, Confucius’ Chinese wisdom spreads like diffused sunlight.

American writers are represented by Bellow, Kate Chopin, Faulkner, Hamnett, Hawthorne, Heller, Hemingway, Highsmith, Henry James, Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, Steinbeck, Stowe, Thoreau, Mark Twain, Updike and Wharton. The list includes five Nobel Laureates.

Besides literature, there are other earth-shaking tomes such as Paine’s Rights of man and common sense, Wollstonecraft’s A vindication of the rights of woman, Adam Smith’s The wealth of the Nations, Clausewitz’s On war, Stuart Mill’s On liberty and utilitarianism and Thomas More’s Utopia.

The major religions also find a place in the collection. The glorious Koran, translated by Marmaduke Pickthall, Old and New Testaments introduced by George Steiner and J. Drury, respectively, and Hindu Scriptures introduced by R.C. Zaehner have also been included.

The Millennium Library thus covers the full gamut of human civilization and accumulated knowledge. It is in a nutshell mankind’s recorded heritage and conveys the subliminal message of freedom of thought. These seminal volumes may be addressed to adults rather than 11-18-year-olds. Many of these titles seem more appropriate for the degree or research level. This is particularly true about Pakistani readership and advisedly this collection was gifted to national and private universities rather than schools, there being very few with a library organized on modern lines.

However, there is a point in the question often posed, “If people don’t become aware of the existence of these works at schools, where will they?” Many of these books are already school texts particularly for Cambridge undergraduate examinations.

It is the librarian’s duty to know, believe in and promote the world’s great literature. In the school where I am Librarian, I shall aim this gift of books at selected reading groups, as shared reading may well be the focus for learning activity. Teachers would agree with me, as classics may not be popular reading. However, without an awareness of the huge horizons of literature and the vastness of printed work, there will always remain a gap in the education of an individual.

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