Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
The Complete Harvard Classics 2021 Edition - ALL 71 Volumes - The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction - cover

The Complete Harvard Classics 2021 Edition - ALL 71 Volumes - The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction

Plato Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, Robert Burns, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Epictetus Epictetus, Thomas Brown, Charles W. Eliot, John Woolman, John Milton, Redhouse

Publisher: Redhouse

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

( newly updated TOC )

The Harvard Universal Classics, originally known as Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf, is a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature, compiled and edited by Harvard University president Charles W. Eliot and first published in 1909.

Eliot had stated in speeches that the elements of a liberal education could be obtained by spending 15 minutes a day reading from a collection of books that could fit on a five-foot shelf. (Originally he had said a three-foot shelf.) The publisher P. F. Collier and Son saw an opportunity and challenged Eliot to make good on this statement by selecting an appropriate collection of works, and the Harvard Classics was the result.

Eliot worked for one year with William A. Neilson, a professor of English; Eliot determined the works to be included and Neilson selected the specific editions and wrote introductory notes. Each volume had 400–450 pages, and the included texts are "so far as possible, entire works or complete segments of the world's written legacies." The collection was widely advertised by Collier and Son, in Collier's and elsewhere, with great success.

Eight years later Eliot added a further 20 volumes as a sub-collection titled 'The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction', offering some of the greatest novels and short stories of world literature. The exhaustive anthology of the 'The Harvard Classics' comprises every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject up to the twentieth century.

The Harvard Classics:
. 1: Franklin, Woolman & Penn
2: Plato, Epictetus & Marcus Aurelius
3: Bacon, Milton, Browne
4: John Milton
5: R. W. Emerson
6: Robert Burns
7: St Augustine & Thomas á Kempis
8: Nine Greek Dramas
9: Cicero and Pliny
10: The Wealth of Nations
11: The Origin of Species
12: Plutarchs
13: Æneid
14: Don Quixote
15: Bunyan & Walton
16: 1001 Nights
17: Folklore & Fable
18: Modern English Drama
19: Goethe & Marlowe
20: The Divine Comedy
21: I Promessi Sposi
22: The Odyssey
23: Two Years Before the Mast
24: Edmund Burke
25: J. S. Mill & T. Carlyle
26: Continental Drama
27 & 28: English & American Essays
29: The Voyage of the Beagle
30: Scientific Papers
31: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
32: Literary and Philosophical Essays
33: Voyages & Travels
34: French & English Philosophers
35: Chronicle and Romance
36: Machiavelli, Roper, More, Luther
37: Locke, Berkeley, Hume
38: Harvey, Jenner, Lister, Pasteur
39: Prologues
40–42: English Poetry
43: American Historical Documents
44 & 45: Sacred Writings
46 & 47: Elizabethan Drama
48: Blaise Pascal
49: Saga
50: Reader's Guide
51: Lectures
The Shelf of Fiction:
1 & 2: The History of Tom Jones
3: A Sentimental Journey & Pride and Prejudice
4: Guy Mannering
5 & 6: Vanity Fair
7 & 8: David Copperfield
9: The Mill on the Floss
10: Irving, Poe, Harte, Twain, Hale
11: The Portrait of a Lady
12: Notre Dame de Paris
13: Balzac, Sand, de Musset, Daudet, de Maupassant
14 & 15: Goethe, Keller, Storm, Fontane
16–19: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev
20: Valera, Bjørnson, Kielland
Available since: 04/04/2021.

Other books that might interest you

  • I Forgot to Die - cover

    I Forgot to Die

    Khalil Rafati

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Khalil Rafati went to Los Angeles in the 1990s and had it all. He was working with Hollywood movie stars and legendary rock musicians, but it wasn't long before he found his way into the dark underbelly of the City of Angels. 
     
     
     
    When he hit rock bottom—addicted to heroin and cocaine, overtaken by paranoia and psychosis, written off by his friends and family—he grabbed a shovel and kept digging. At thirty-three, Khalil was 109 pounds, a convicted felon, high school dropout, and homeless junkie living on the infamous Skid Row in downtown L.A. 
     
     
     
    So how does someone with nothing, who feels like they deserve nothing, and who just wants to end it all turn their life around? 
     
     
     
    I Forgot to Die is an incredible true story of pain, suffering, addiction, and redemption—and how one man ultimately conquered his demons and wrote himself a new life story.
    Show book
  • Noncorporeal II - cover

    Noncorporeal II

    A.R.R. Ash, Aimee Kluck, Andrea...

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Short spooky stories bearing one common theme; an immaterial presence that drives the tale. Ghost stories. Talented authors, many horror writers, join to bring you a spine-tingling collection.
    Show book
  • St Rose of Lima: The Flower of the New World - cover

    St Rose of Lima: The Flower of...

    Florence Mary Capes

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Saint Rose of Lima, T.O.S.D. (April 20, 1586 – August 24, 1617), was a Spanish colonist in Lima, Peru, who became known for both her life of severe asceticism and her care of the needy of the city through her own private efforts. A lay member of the Dominican Order, she was the first person born in the Americas to be canonized by the Catholic Church.  (Summary from Wikipedia)
    Show book
  • Alfred the Great - The King and His England - cover

    Alfred the Great - The King and...

    Eleanor Shipley Duckett

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    From the author of The Gateway to the Middle Ages, “a fascinating portrait of an enlightened monarch against a background of darkness and ignorance” (Kirkus Reviews).   Filled with drama and action, here is the story of the ninth-century life and times of Alfred—warrior, conqueror, lawmaker, scholar, and the only king whom England has ever called “The Great.” Based on up-to-date information on ninth-century history, geography, philosophy, literature, and social life, it vividly presents exciting views of Alfred in every stage of his long career and leaves the reader with a sharply etched picture of the world of the Middle Ages.
    Show book
  • Blood Brothers - The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel - cover

    Blood Brothers - The Dramatic...

    Elias Chacour

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    As a child, Elias Chacour lived in a small Palestinian village in Galilee. When tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and nearly one million forced into refugee camps in 1948, Elias began a long struggle with how to respond. In Blood Brothers, he blends his riveting life story with historical research to reveal a little-known side of the Arab-Israeli conflict, touching on questions such as: 
     
     
     
    ● What behind-the-scenes politics touched off the turmoil in the Middle East? 
     
     
     
    ● What does Bible prophecy really have to say? 
     
     
     
    ● Can bitter enemies ever be reconciled? 
     
     
     
    Now updated with commentary on the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as a new foreword by Lynne Hybels and Gabe Lyons, Blood Brothers offers hope and insight that can help each of us learn to live at peace in a world of tension and terror.
    Show book
  • Freeman's: Change - cover

    Freeman's: Change

    John Freeman

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    This volume of the acclaimed literary journal explores the hope and pain of an ever-changing present with new work by Lauren Groff, Ocean Vuong, and more. The Covid-19 pandemic forced many of us to reimagine our homes, work, and relationships. And yet, in this period of intense isolation, we faced dilemmas which are nearly universal. How to love, to care for aging parents, to fight for justice. This vast range of experiences is captured by our greatest storytellers, essayists, and poets, in this issue of Freeman’s: Change. In Joshua Bennett’s essay, a Coltrane playlist sets the stage for early morning dances with his newborn son as they watch the sun come up. In Lina Mounzer’s “The Gamble,” a father’s incessant hope for a better life festers and sinks the whole family after they leave Lebanon during the Civil War. In Kamel Daoud’s heartbreaking tale, a widow’s attempt to retreat into the unchanging past edits her son right from her reality. And in “Final Days,” Sayaka Murata imagines a future without aging, where people must choose how and when they want to die. With new writing from Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Zahia Rahmani, Yoko Ogawa, Yasmine El Rashidi, Lina Meruane, and Aleksandar Hemon, and featuring work from never-before-published writers like Elizabeth Ayre, Freeman’s: Change opens a window into the many-sided ways we adapt.
    Show book