McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader McGuffey Author:William McGuffey and Henry Steele Commager 1979 edition, published in 1962 by Signet New American Library, 'the influence that McGuffey's Eclectic Readers exerted on the minds of American schoo children for the better part of a century has, in recent years, been debated..." foreword written by historian Henry Steele Commager