Carus was an interesting figure in Anglo-American philosophy and we owe him much. He was a friend to and publisher of the great Charles Peirce, when he was universally condemned and shunted by the academic community, and a champion of many other philosophies, which were most definitely not mainstream in 19th century America, through his Open Court Press. He promoted Eastern philosophies which were a novelty at the time (circa 1890s)and translated Buddhist and Taoist texts.
The Dhammapada is an exquisite and essential collection of the basic philosophy of Buddhism, in what we would call blank verse, a pocket-size distillation of the huge Tripitaka (the general collection of the original discourses of the Buddha) made by monks about 700 years after his death in the early 5th century B.C.
This particular translation is, in my opinion, somewhat antiquated, has been superceded by many others, which are more contemporary, poetic, accurate, and/or informative. I like the diminuative volume available from Auroville Press, with commentaries of the Mother, recorded in the late 1950's.

Although this is a really old and linguistically dated, for a variety of reasons this is the simplest place for a person familiar with the Gospels to begin an inquiry into the life of the Buddha (as opposed to Buddhism as a religion generally-- which is much to broad for this book to cover in its just over three hundred pages....) For a book that is almost one hundred years old, its author did a remarkable job of summarizing the sutras that detail the life of the Buddha and in providing charts, etc. such that Christians would grasp that yes, this man was teaching many of the same things as was the man who taught in their Bible.....

This is a good place to learn about the Buddha's life. However, a person versed only in this book would not be familiar with most of the forms of Buddhism as they were actually practiced-- it would be difficult to identify HOW Zen of Pure Land or Vajrayana Buddhism came to be having just this little book much in the same wasy it would be impossible to determine how Christianity had changed and developed throughout time having only the record provided in the New Testament, or Judaism having only the Pentatuch.....

For those acquainted with Buddhist literature, this book is vaguely similar in content to the Digha Nikaya ("The Long Discourses of the Buddha") in that both are trying to portray how Buddhism, or the thought and teachings of the Buddha were portrayed at the time of his life as opposed to any kind of philosophy, etc. which developed later (the Mahayana stuff). For those interested in this stuff, I would advise books by Robert Thurman (there are a number) and D.T. Suzuki (again, the same) as the easiest to understand in regards to Indian and Tibetan forms and East Asian and Zen forms respectively.

I highly recommend this book....