Classic: a book which people praise and don’t read.
Genuine
Yes. In Following the Equator (1897), Chapter XXV, epigraph from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, said by Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar. These are the character’s words, not a statement in Twain’s own voice.
Found word for word by program in the full text.
- Work
- Following the Equator, 1897
- Where
- Chapter XXV, epigraph from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar
- Found at
- Paragraph 794 of the text
Researched by AI; checked by program against the full text on 31 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
On the page
[…] All Ballarat English is like that, and the effect is very soft and pleasant; it takes all the hardness and harshness out of our tongue and gives to it a delicate whispery and vanishing cadence which charms the ear like the faint rustling of the forest leaves.
“Classic.” A book which people praise and don’t read. —Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar1.
On the rail again—bound for Bendigo. From diary:
October 23. Got up at 6, left at 7.30; soon reached Castlemaine, one of the rich gold-fields of the early days; waited several hours for a train; left at 3.40 and reached Bendigo in an hour. […]
The scene
Following the Equator, Twain’s account of his lecture tour round the world in 1895-96, opens each chapter with an entry from ‘Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar’: Twain’s own maxims, put under the name of the almanac-maker from his 1894 novel. This one, in the form of a dictionary definition, heads a chapter of diary entries from Victoria, on the train to Bendigo; it is not tied to the chapter. In a dinner speech in New York in 1900 (‘Disappearance of Literature’) he came back to the idea, but gave it as Professor C. T. Winchester’s: Paradise Lost ‘meets his definition of a classic—something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.’
What it means
A classic is a book everyone agrees is great and almost no one actually reads.
Also shared as
- A misquotationA classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. From his speech ‘Disappearance of Literature’ (Nineteenth Century Club, New York, 20 November 1900), where he presents it as Professor Winchester’s definition, not his own; usually quoted as Twain’s.
Before and after
Topics
Related quotes
- Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
- Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
- Golf is a good walk spoiled. (not found)
- When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
- Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Sources
Cite it
Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897), Chapter XXV, epigraph from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar. Spoken by Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/classic-a-book-people-praise-and-dont-read/ (31 October 2026).
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Checked by people
People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.
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