CURTIS, Charles P Jr., GREENSLET, Ferris

[577] pp.

Houghton Mifflin Company

1945

7 1/2" x 4 3/4"

Two extraordinary men of intellect, Charles P. Curtis, Jr. and Ferris Greenslet, selected and edited a compendium  entitled, The Practical Cogitator – The Thinker’s Anthology.  Curtis, a Boston Lawyer who taught Constitutional Law at Harvard, and Greenslet, Literary Editor at Houghton Mifflin, spent almost a decade in an ambitious undertaking almost beyond the reach of minds as capacious as theirs.

Curtis anticipated the outbreak of World War, and as one who had commanded a destroyer in the First World War, he knew the deadening routine of life in anticipation of engagement.  He had filled empty hours during his tour of duty in recalling and transcribing essays that had been of importance to him throughout his life. His hope was to gather the essential great ideas and great expressions in a concentrated collection so that the next generation of soldiers would have a portable library in a single edition.

Meeting Greenslet at Houghton Mifflin, Curtis found the literary collaborator capable of inspiring and organizing the anthology.  The book was not finished by the outbreak of World War II, but finally reached the public in 1945.  A second and third edition followed