I decided a few days ago that I am going to start a project that I have always wanted to do, read the entire 51 Volume set of the Harvard Classics aka “The Five Foot Shelf of Books”. I work in a Library and we have the complete set on our shelves but they are also available as eBooks in a couple of places online such as at the Project Gutenberg website. I first remember hearing about them in High School when our English teacher mentioned them. They are essentially a method to obtain a classical liberal arts education without going to school.
The short description of the collection from the Gutenberg site:
The Harvard 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, that was first published in 1909.
Dr. Eliot, then President of Harvard University, 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.)
Dr Eliot’s own words on the logic behind the volumes selected and what someone who reads the set should achieve:
“My aim was not to select the best fifty, or best hundred, books in the world, but to give, in twenty-three thousand pages or thereabouts, a picture of the progress of the human race within historical times, so far as that progress can be depicted in books. The purpose of The Harvard Classics is, therefore, one different from that of collections in which the editor’s aim has been to select a number of best books; it is nothing less than the purpose to present so ample and characteristic a record of the stream of the world’s thought that the observant reader’s mind shall be enriched, refined and fertilized.
Within the limits of fifty volumes, containing about twenty-three thousand pages, my task was to provide the means of obtaining such knowledge of ancient and modern literature as seemed essential to the twentieth-century idea of a cultivated man. The best acquisition of a cultivated man is a liberal frame of mind or way of thinking; but there must be added to that possession acquaintance with the prodigious store of recorded discoveries, experiences, and reflections which humanity in its intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization has acquired and laid up.
Liberal education accomplishes two objects. It produces a liberal frame of mind, and it makes the studious and reflective recipient acquainted with the stream of the world’s thought and feeling, and with the infinitely varied products of the human imagination. It was my hope and belief that fifty volumes might accomplish this result for any intelligent, ambitious, and persistent reader, whether his early opportunities for education has been large or small. Such was the educational purpose with which I undertook to edit The Harvard Classics.”
I have read quite a few of the books that make up the collection singularly over the years, particularly the classics from antiquity. My goal now is to start with volume 1 and work my way through the entire set. I figure it will take me anywhere from 6-9 months to read them all but I am not sure. I will probably put up a post with my impressions of each volume as I finish reading it. I am currently about 1/3 of the way through volume 1. I am sure that there are some volumes, particularly poetry, that I struggle through and at times I may want to give up but my goal is to have finished reading the complete set by the end of 2019.
So you can all see what the individual works are within the set below is a list of all the works that make up the Harvard Classics in the order in which they appear in the collection.
Volume 1) FRANKLIN, WOOLMAN, PENN
a) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin , by Benjamin Franklin
b) Journal, by John Woolman
c) Fruits of Solitude, by William Penn
Volume 2) PLATO, EPICTETUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
a) Apology , Phædo and Crito , by Plato
b) The Golden Sayings , by Epictetus
c) The Meditations , by Marcus Aurelius
Volume 3) BACON, MILTON’S PROSE, THOS. BROWN
a) Essays, Civil and Moral & The New Atlantis , by Francis Bacon
b) Areopagitica & Tractate on Education, by John Milton
c) Religio Medici , by Sir Thomas Browne
Volume 4) COMPLETE POEMS IN ENGLISH, MILTON
a) Complete Poems Written in English , by John Milton
Volume 5) ESSAYS AND ENGLISH TRAITS, EMERSON
a) Essays and English Traits , by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Volume 6) POEMS AND SONGS, BURNS
a) Poems and Songs , by Robert Burns
Volume 7) CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, IMITATION OF CHRIST
a) The Confessions of Saint Augustine , by Saint Augustine
b) The Imitation of Christ , by Thomas á Kempis
Volume 8) NINE GREEK DRAMAS
a) Agamemnon , The Libation Bearers , The Furies & Prometheus Bound , by Aeschylus
b) Oedipus the King & Antigone , by Sophocles
c) Hippolytus & The Bacchæ , by Euripides
d) The Frogs , by Aristophanes
Volume 9) LETTERS AND TREATISES OF CICERO AND PLINY
a) Treatises on Friendship and Old Age and Letters , by Cicero
b) Letters also as: The Letters of Cicero
c) Letters , by Pliny the Younger
Volume 10) WEALTH OF NATIONS, ADAM SMITH
a) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations , by Adam Smith
Volume 11) ORIGIN OF SPECIES, DARWIN
a) On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life , by Charles Darwin
Volume 12) PLUTARCH’S LIVES
a) Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans , by Plutarch
Volume 13) AENEID, VIRGIL
a) Æneid , by Virgil
Volume 14) DON QUIXOTE, Part 1, CERVANTES
a) Don Quixote , by Cervantes
Volume 15) PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, DONNE & HERBERT, BUNYAN, WALTON
a) The Pilgrim’s Progress , by John Bunyan
b) The Lives of Donne and Herbert , by Izaak Walton
Volume 16) THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
a) Stories from the Thousand and One Nights
Volume 17) FOLKLORE AND FABLE, AESOP, GRIMM, ANDERSON
a) Fables , by Æsop
b) Household Tales , by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
c) Tales , by Hans Christian Andersen
Volume 18) MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA
a) All for Love , by John Dryden
b) The School for Scandal , by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
c) She Stoops to Conquer , by Oliver Goldsmith
d) The Cenci , by Percy Bysshe Shelley
e) A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon , by Robert Browning
f) Manfred , by Lord Byron
Volume 19) FAUST, EGMONT, ETC. DOCTOR FAUSTUS, GOETHE, MARLOWE
a) Faust, Part I , Egmont & Hermann and Dorothea , by J. W. von Goethe
b) Dr. Faustus , by Christopher Marlowe
Volume 20) THE DIVINE COMEDY, DANTE
a) The Divine Comedy , by Dante Alighieri
Volume 21) I PROMESSI SPOSI
a) Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed ), by Alessandro Manzoni
Volume 22) THE ODYSSEY, HOMER
a) The Odyssey , by Homer
Volume 23) TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, DANA
a) Two Years Before the Mast , by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
Volume 24) ON THE SUBLIME, FRENCH REVOLUTION, ETC., BURKE
a) On Taste, On the Sublime and Beautiful (titled as “A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful; With an Introductory Discourse Concerning Taste”)
Volume 25) AUTOBIOGRAPHY, ETC., ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES, J.S. MILL, T. CARLYLE
a) Autobiography & On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
b) “Characteristics”, “Inaugural Address at Edinburgh” & “Sir Walter Scott”, by Thomas Carlyle
Volume 26) CONTINENTAL DRAMA
a) Life Is a Dream , by Pedro Calderón de la Barca
b) Polyeucte , by Pierre Corneille
c) Phèdre (Phaedra ), by Jean Racine
d) Tartuffe , by Molière
e) Minna von Barnhelm , by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
f) Wilhelm Tell , by Friedrich von Schiller
Volume 27) ENGLISH ESSAYS: SIDNEY TO MACAULAY
Volume 28) ESSAYS: ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
Volume 29) VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE, DARWIN
a) The Voyage of the Beagle , by Charles Darwin
Volume 30) FARADAY, HELMHOLTZ, KELVIN, NEWCOMB, ETC.
a) Scientific Papers: Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology
Volume 31) AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BENVENUTO CELLINI
a) The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini , by Benvenuto Cellini
Volume 32) LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
a) Montaigne, Sainte-Beuve, Renan, etc.
Volume 33) VOYAGES AND TRAVELS
a) Voyages and Travels: Ancient and Modern
Volume 34) FRENCH AND ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS, DESCARTES, VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU, HOBBES
a) Discourse on Method , by René Descartes
b) Letters on the English , by Voltaire
c) On the Inequality among Mankind & Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
d) Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan , by Thomas Hobbes
Volume 35) CHRONICLE AND ROMANCE, FROISSART, MALORY, HARRISON
a) Chronicles, by Jean Froissart
b) The Holy Grail, by Sir Thomas Malory
c) A Description of Elizabethan England, by William Harrison
Volume 36) MACHIAVELLI, MORE, LUTHER
a) The Prince , by Niccolò Machiavelli
b) The Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Roper
c) Utopia , by Sir Thomas More
d) The Ninety-Five Theses , Address to the Christian Nobility & Concerning Christian Liberty, by Martin Luther
Volume 37) LOCKE, BERKELEY, HUME
a) Some Thoughts Concerning Education, by John Locke
b) Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists , by George Berkeley
c) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , by David Hume
Volume 38) HARVEY, JENNER, LISTER, PASTEUR
a) The Oath of Hippocrates, by Hippocrates
b) Journeys in Diverse Places, by Ambroise Paré
c) On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals, by William Harvey
d) The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against Smallpox, by Edward Jenner
e) The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, by Oliver Wendell Holmes
f) On the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery, by Joseph Lister
g) Scientific Papers, by Louis Pasteur
h) Scientific Papers, by Charles Lyell
Volume 39) FAMOUS PREFACES
a) Prefaces and Prologues
Volume 40) ENGLISH POETRY 1: CHAUCER TO GRAY
Volume 41) ENGLISH POETRY 2: COLLINS TO FITZGERALD
Volume 42) ENGLISH POETRY 3: TENNYSON TO WHITMAN
Volume 43) AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
a) American Historical Documents: 1000-1904
Volume 44) SACRED WRITINGS 1
a) Confucian: The Sayings of Confucius , by Confucius
b) Hebrew: Job , Psalms & Ecclesiastes
c) Christian I: Luke & Acts
Volume 45) SACRED WRITINGS 2
a) Christian II: Corinthians I & II & Hymns
b) Buddhist: Writings
c) Hindu: The Bhagavad-Gita
d) Mohammedan (that is, Muslim): Chapters from the Koran
Volume 46) ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 1
a) Edward the Second , by Christopher Marlowe
b) Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth & The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
Volume 47) ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 2
a) The Shoemaker’s Holiday, by Thomas Dekker
b) The Alchemist , by Ben Jonson
c) Philaster , by Beaumont and Fletcher
d) The Duchess of Malfi , by John Webster
e) A New Way to Pay Old Debts, by Philip Massinger
Volume 48) THOUGHTS AND MINOR WORKS, PASCAL
a) Thoughts , Letters & Minor Works, by Blaise Pascal
Volume 49) EPIC AND SAGA
a) Beowulf
b) The Song of Roland
c) The Destruction of Dá Derga’s Hostel
d) The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs
Volume 50) INTRODUCTION, READER’S GUIDE, INDEXES
Volume 51) LECTURES
a) The last volume contains 60 lectures introducing and summarizing the covered fields: history, poetry, natural science, philosophy, biography, prose fiction, criticism and the essay, education, political science, drama, voyages and travel, and religion.