Classics (Vertin and Ellis)

An anthology of the investment literature — excerpts, essays, letters and speeches from the people who built the field, assembled with commentary by Charles D. Ellis and James R. Vertin. The premise is that most of what matters in investing was already written down well, somewhere, by someone, and that the useful exercise is reading the originals rather than the summaries of them. A second volume, Classics II: Another Investor’s Anthology, followed in 1991 and is the next entry on Li Lu’s list.

Why it’s on the list: Li Lu’s value-investing section is a reading lineage, not a how-to shelf, and these two anthology volumes are where he points a reader at the primary literature itself.

Where I saw it: Li Lu’s Recommended Book List, entry 15 of section IV, given with no year. This is the section the saved X posts photographed. Full transcription: Li Lu’s Recommended Book List.

Connections

• Li Lu’s Recommended Book List — the list this came from.
• Li Lu — the Himalaya Capital founder who assembled it.
• Classics II — Another Investor’s Anthology — the 1991 second volume, entry 16 on the same list.
• The Intelligent Investor — the canonical primary text the anthology draws on.
• Money Masters of Our Time — John Train’s survey, the entry immediately before this one on the list.
• Value Investing — the tradition being anthologised.