William Lyon Phelps - The Pleasure of Books (1933)

William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943) was an American educator, literary critic and author. He served as a professor of English at Yale University from 1901 to 1933. His works include: "Advance of the English Novel" and "Essays on Modern Dramatists." On April 6, 1933, he delivered this speech during a radio broadcast.,His reverence¹ for books was not shared by everyone, especially those in Nazi² Germany. On May 10, 1933, Nazis³ staged an event unseen since the Middle Ages as young German students from universities, formerly⁴ regarded as among the finest in the world, gathered in Berlin and other German cities to burn books with "un-German" ideas.,