SOURCE: A review of Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without, in The New York Times Book Review, Vol. 73, February 25, 1968, p. 16.

In the following review, the critic wishes that the targets of Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without included more of the "beefy sacred cows" of English literature.

[Fifty Works of English∗ Literature We Could Do Without] are 50 more or less sanctified old literary birds, habitat Eng. Lit., some still fluttering their wings in the halls of Academe, others so thoroughly fossilized one wonders at the waste of ammunition. They are works of English (∗and American) literature the authors could do without, and they largely turn out to be works most of us have been doing without from the moment they were thrust into our unwilling hands early on the road to Graduation Day.

Thus we learn, to our surprise, that Beowulf is...