Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
I am willing to bet that you can't think of 10 quality nonfiction and biography titles that came out prior to the BPHs. I'm quite certain that you can't find 10 such titles on Baen or Smashwords .
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10 second Google search:
The Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Dream Psychology by Sigmund Freud
The Einstein Theory of Relativity
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The Iliad of Homer by Homer
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
The Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto
Tao Te Ching by Laozi
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson
The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Breckenridge Carnegie
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells
The Republic by Plato
The Federalist Papers by Publius
The Complete Aristotle by Aristotle
Wasn't familiar with the Miyamoto but all the rest at least rang a bell. Not sure the Jefferson and Marx efforts should be included, but let's leave them in for the sake of historical significance. To be on the safe side let's add:
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Gibbon
The Guide-book. A Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina - Burton
De Bello Gallico - Julius Caesar
Paradise Lost - Milton
On Walden Pond - Thoreau
Confessions of an English Opium Eater - deQuincey
My Bondage, My Freedom - Frederick Douglass
Personal Memoirs - Ulysses S. Grant
A Tramp Abroad - Mark Twain
Now I haven't checked to see if any of the BPH were the original publishers of the above, but I'm fairly certain that "quality" non-fiction, biography, travel, philosophy and political books all existed before they came on the scene - and will continue to do so if they have to leave.
Edit: I see jgaiser beat me to it, with some of the same titles. Just proves the point really.