Meet
Donald Seward Erdman
14 years old, 1934
Donald Seward Erdman (April 22, 1919 – March 5, 2002), became an eminent American scientist of the twentieth century who made significant contributions to science through his ichthyological studies, to literature through his prolific logbook writing, and to peace through his dedication to pacifism.
Donald Seward Erdman, (April 22, 1919 – March 5, 2002)
Six Salamanders Book List
By D.S. Erdman, written 1932 – 1937
Transcribed and annotated by his granddaughter, Lori Alayne Way, 2024
"6 salamanders brought to New York alive from Princeton, N.J. — D.S.E.
Friday, December 30, 1932: My turtle was bought then."
The following book list is a digitally annotated excerpt from:
Don’s Diaries: The 1930s, Makings of an American Scientist
Book I: Six Salamanders, 1932 – 1934
“Books I have read in the past…”
3. Bambi
4. Ivanhoe
5. Bomba
6. Don Sturdy in Lionland
7. Princess and Curdy
9. Alice through the looking-glass
10. Rhine Gold
11. In the Days of Giants
13. Bob Son-of-battle
14. Black Beauty
15. Smoky
16. Winnie The Pooh
17. House at Pooh Corner
18. Dog Ready
19. Robin Hood
20. Pinocchio in Africa
21. Stories of the King
22. Billy Whiskers at the Expedition
23. Iliad
24. Peter Pan
25. Peter & Polly books
26. Tree Dwellers
27. Early Cave Man
28. Later Cave Man
29. Jungle Book I
30. Story of Greeks
31. Story of Romans
32. Burgess Bird Book
33. Anderson’s Fairy Tales
34. Pip & Squeak anual 1929
35. Pip & Squeak annual 1931
36. The Wonder Clock
37. Pioneers and Patriots
Books I have read since Jan. 1932
(In 1932, Don was twelve years old, in seventh grade, then turned thirteen and began eighth grade.)
12, Seventh Grade, and 13, Eighth Grade
1. Dr. Dolittle
2. Border Watch
3. Square Rigged
4. Tom Sawyer
6. Animal Heroes
8. Bing
9. Robinson Crusoe
10. Lion
11. Coral Island
12. Travels of Birds
13. Wolf
Books I have read since Jan. 1933
(In 1933, Don was thirteen, in eighth grade, then turned fourteen and began ninth grade: 13, Eighth Grade, and 14, Ninth Grade.)
1. Congorilla
2. The Children of the New Forest
3. Thrills of a Naturalist’s Quest
4. The Last of the Mohicans
5. Wild Animals at Home
6. Zoo and Animal Annual
7. Jock of the Bushveld
8. Kim
10. Biography of a Silver-Fox
11. Tarzan the Invincible
12. Great Short Stories (Vol. II)
13. In The Zoo
14. Safari
15. The Realm of The Wizzard King
16. Dawgs.
17. The Liveliest Term of Templeton
18. Strange Animals I have Known
19. The Virginian*
20. Van Loon’s Geography
21. W.H. Hudson, The Book of a Naturalist
22. Twenty-thousand leagues under the Sea
23. Around the world in eighty days
24. The Blockade Runners
25. Around the Moon
26. The Prince and the Pauper
27. The Three Musketeers
28. David Goes to Greenland
29. Twenty Years After
30. The Last Days of Pompeii
31. Bruce
33. Little America
34. The Prairie
35. The Pioneers
36. Beneath the Tropic Seas
37. Trails of the Hunted
38. Treasure Island
39. Kidnapped
40. The Talisman
Books I have read since Jan 1934
(In 1934, Don was fourteen, in ninth grade, then turned fifteen and began Third Form, otherwise known as tenth grade. This was his pivot year, from middle school to high school, the Allen-Stevenson School to Choate, home to boarding school.)
14, Ninth Grade, and 15, Third Form
1. Count of Monte-Cristo
2. Three Musktangeers
3. Book of Fishes
4. In Brightest Africa
5. Pioneers of the Wild West
6. Sand
7. The Lady of the Lake
8. The Call of the Wild
9. Dudley and Gilderoy
10. Flash, the Lead Dog
11. Drums
12. The Exploits of Bridgadier Gerard
13. The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard
14. Microbe Hunters
15. The Deershayer
16. Bannertail (Squirrel tale by E.T. Seton)
17. The Twin Grizzlies of Admiralty Island
18. Big-Enough
19. Sherlock Holmes Detective Stories
20. Quentin Durward
21. The Pathfinder
22. The Sea-Lions
23. A Student In Arms
24. Kenilworth
25. Trilby
28. Revolt in the Desert
30. The Chinese Parrot
Books I have read since Jan. 1935
(In 1935, Don was fifteen in Third Form and sixteen in Second Form.)
15, Third Form, and 16, Second Form
1. My Autobiography (Mussolini)
2. The Countess DeCharny (Dumas)
3. The Red Rover (J.Fenimore Cooper)
4. The White Company (A. Conon Doyle)
5. Hugh Wynne (S. Weir Mitchell)
6. Oliver Twist (Dickens)
7. Great Expectation (Dickens)
8. Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis)
9. Peacock Pie (Walter de la Mare)
10. The Mayor of Custerbridge (Thomas Hardy)
11. The Woodlanders (Thomas Hardy)
Books I have read since Jan. 1936
(Don was sixteen in Second Form then seventeen in First Form.)
16, Second Form, and 17, First Form
1. Wild Animal Ways (Ernest T. Thompson)
2. The Man-eaters of Tsavo (Lt.-Col. J.H. Patterson)
3. Men Against Death (Paul de Kruif)
4. Elizabeth and Essex (Strachey)
5. Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
1937
(In 1937, Don was seventeen, in First Form. He graduated from Choate the spring and began as a freshman at Cornell University that fall, when he was eighteen.)
1. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Hardy)
2. Death Comes for the Archbishop (Willa Cather)
* For more books read by Don during his teenaged years, 1932 through 1937, read his logbooks, as presented by his granddaughter in the coming-of-age series, Don's Diaries: The 1930s, Makings of an American Scientist.
* * *
Donald Seward Erdman was an eminent American ichthyologist born in 1919. For his biography, see my work. These are the books he read when he was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen. This list is a transcription from the original logbooks and contains original errors from the historical documents, hence the lack of some capitalizations, etc.
Please note that these are not necessarily my personal recommendations, as I have not read them all, but I can assure you that Don had excellent taste, especially in things like literature, as he was a lifelong reader and writer. Combined with his scientific curiosity, the list is filled with themes of adventure and the natural world—often a touch of magic in imagined worlds, then the shock of the real world and its wonders that are more than magical.
These books are examples of the finest literature, and the list certainly contains many classics if not all. I have read many of them, but even for me, there are new titles. If you read one from this list, I would love to hear your commentary on the story and whether you would recommend it, why or why not.
I have also created a curated annotated digital list. For each book, the curated annotated digital list contains an AI-assisted overview with links to further information about the book, the author, the original book, the Gutenberg transcription, in which originals are transcribed into modern type and contain chapter links and often have digital images of the original book through the Internet Archive. For each book, I have also included a link or links to the audio book, with some read by men and some by women, some with American accents and some with English accents, as they were available and in the most appealing voice of the options, thus curating the selections.
If you find other recordings or publications you like better, that is fine, as long as you make sure that the text you are reading corresponds with the audio, as there are various publications at different dates in history, which might have slightly different interpretations of the original text and not all historians have been as careful as others. I do make an effort to make sure the information I post here at Garnet House is true and accurate, but if I present something in error, please be so kind as to bring it to my attention. We make every effort to get things right. We appreciate masterfully developed stories that are beautifully written and make waves through history, shaping our human story as we evolve and continue to pass down our stories to subsequent generations.
Please note that all information presented here is only a starting place. Consider this a spring board from which you may take deeper dives into classical literature and its authors.
May this carefully curated, annotated historical list of literature—as read by an American boy when he was twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years old, from 1932 through 1934—give you a starting place. May it be way to introduce you to a wide variety of literature from the English language before 1935, many from the nineteen century.
By the end of 1934, when Don was just fifteen years old, he had read at least 120 books of classic literature. These are the books that made the man.
One day I will surprise you and have here a link to his first book from the first series about Donald Seward Erdman: Six Salamanders.
