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About William J. Bennett & John T.E. Cribb

The Book of Virtues (subtitled A Treasury of Great Moral Stories) is a 1993 anthology edited by William Bennett. It consists of 370 passages across ten chapters devoted to a different virtue, each of the latter escalating in complexity as they progress. Included in its pages are selections from ancient and modern sources, ranging from the Bible, Greek mythology, Aesop's Fables, William Shakespeare, and the Brothers Grimm, to later authors such as Hilaire Belloc, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Frost, and Oscar Wilde.

A former Secretary of Education for the United States, Bennett began developing the book around 1988 at the behest of teachers who pointed out what they viewed as the deficiencies of moral education in their schools. Work on the project was paused during his tenure as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and resumed by 1990 after he turned down an offer to lead the Republican National Convention. With the help of his friend and speechwriter John Cribb, Bennett gathered a wide range of passages for the collection, envisioning it as a modern-day version of the McGuffey's Readers.

The Book of Virtues was published in November 1993 by Simon & Schuster, receiving 40,000 copies in its first printing. Despite the publisher's initial lack of faith and advertising, concerns from industry skeptics, and mixed reviews for both its content and Bennett's own contributions, it became a New York Times Best Seller for more than 80 weeks (peaking at No. 1 in January 1994), and sold up to three million within six months in print.

On FindMyTBR we track 4 books by William J. Bennett & John T.E. Cribb, 4 of them confirmed as audiobooks on Spotify or Apple Books — including 150 Great American Events, 150 Great Americans, and America the Strong: Conservative Ideas to Spark the Next Generation. Full availability across Spotify, Apple Books, Audible, and Amazon is below.