Posted on 03/30/2021 8:03:25 AM PDT by Sparky1776
In an attempt to fill the gaps of my public school education I've started to read, slowly, the Harvard Classics first printed in 1909 and 1910. It's a collection of classic books in 50 volumes with an additional 20 volumes first printed in 1917. My collection is incomplete with 24 random volumes of the first 50.
“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.” – Charles W Eliot
Volume 1: His Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin The Journal of John Woolman by John Woolman Fruits of Solitude by William Penn
Volume 2: The Apology, Crito, and Phaedo by Plato The Golden Sayings by Epictetus The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Volume 3: Essays, Civil and Moral, and New Atlantis by Francis Bacon Areopagitica and Tractate of Education by John Milton Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Browne
Volume 4: Complete poems written in English by John Milton
Volume 5: Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson Volume 6:Poems and songs by Robert Burns
Volume 7: The Confessions by Saint Augustine The Imitation of Christ by Thomas á Kempis
Volume 8: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Furies, and Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus Oedipus the King, and Antigone by Sophocles Hippolytus and The Bacchae by Euripides The Frogs by Aristophanes
Volume 9: On Friendship, On Old Age, and Letters, by Cicero Letters by Pliny the Younger
Volume 10: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Volume 11: The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Volume 12: Lives by Plutarch
Volume 13: Aeneid by Virgil
Volume 14: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Volume 15: The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan The Lives of Donne and Herbert by Izaak Walton
Volume 16: Stories from the Thousand and One Nights translated by Edward William Lane
Volume 17: Fables by Aesop Children's and Household Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
Volume 18: All for Love by John Dryden The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith The Cenci by Percy Bysshe Shelley A Blot in the 'Scutcheon by Robert Browning Manfred by Lord Byron
Volume 19: Faust, part 1, Egmont, and Hermann and Dorothea by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Volume 20: The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Volume 21: I Promessi Sposi by Alessandro Manzoni
Volume 22: The Odyssey by Homer
Volume 23: Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr
Volume 24: On Taste, On the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution, and A Letter to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke
Volume 25: Autobiography and On Liberty by John Stuart Mill Characteristics, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh, and Sir Walter Scott by Thomas Carlyle
Volume 26: Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca Polyeucte by Pierre Corneille Phèdre by Jean Racine Tartuffe by Molière Minna von Barnhelm by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing William Tell by Friedrich von Schiller
Volume 27: English Essays, Sidney to Macaulay
Volume 28: Essays, English and American
Volume 29: The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
Volume 30: The Forces of Matter and The Chemical History of a Candle by Michael Faraday On the Conservation of Force and Ice and Glaciers by Hermann von Helmholtz The Wave Theory of Light and The Tides by Lord Kelvin The Extent of the Universe by Simon Newcomb Geographical Evolution by Sir Archibald Geikieme
Volume 31: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
Volume 32: Essays, by Michel Eyquem de Montaigne Montaigne and What is a Classic? by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve The Poetry of the Celtic Races by Ernest Renan The Education of the Human Race by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man by Friedrich von Schiller Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant Byron and Goethe by Giuseppe Mazzini
Volume 33: An account of Egypt from The Histories by Herodotus Germany by Tacitus Sir Francis Drake Revived by Philip Nichols Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World by Francis Pretty Drake's Great Armada by Captain Walter Bigges Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland by Edward Haies The Discovery of Guiana by Sir Walter Raleigh
Volume 34: Discourse on Method by René Descartes Letters on the English by Voltaire On the Inequality among Mankind and Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar by Jean Jacques Rousseau Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
Volume 35: Chronicles by Jean Froissart The Holy Grail by Sir Thomas Malory A Description of Elizabethan England by William Harrison
Volume 36: The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli The Life of Sir Thomas More by William Roper Utopia by Sir Thomas More The Ninety-Five Theses, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, and On the Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther
Volume 37: Some Thoughts Concerning Education by John Locke Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists by George Berkeley An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
Volume 38: The Oath of Hippocrates Journeys in Diverse Places by Ambroise Paré On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals by William Harvey The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against Smallpox by Edward Jenner The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever by Oliver Wendell Holmes On the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery by Joseph Lister Scientific papers by Louis Pasteur Scientific papers by Charles Lyell
Volume 39: "Title, Prologue and Epilogues to the Recuyell of the Histories of Troy" by William Caxton "Epilogue to Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers" by William Caxton "Prologue to Golden Legend" by William Caxton "Prologue to Caton" by William Caxton "Epilogue to Aesop" by William Caxton "Proem to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales" by William Caxton "Prologue to Malory's King Arthur" "Prologue to Virgil's Eneydos" by William Caxton "Dedication of the Institutes of the Christian Religion" by John Calvin "Dedication of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies" by Nicolaus Copernicus "Preface to the History of the Reformation in Scotland" by John Knox "Prefatory Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh on The Faerie Queene" by Edmund Spenser "Preface to the History of the World" by Sir Walter Raleigh "Prooemium, Epistle Dedicatory, Preface, and Plan of the Instauratio Magna, etc." by Francis Bacon "Preface to the Novum Organum" by Francis Bacon "Preface to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Plays" by Heminge and Condell "Preface to the Philosophiae Naturalis Pricipia Mathematica" by Sir Isaac Newton "Preface to Fables, Ancient and Modern" by John Dryden "Preface to Joseph Andrews" by Henry Fielding "Preface to the English Dictionary" by Samuel Johnson "Preface to Shakespeare" by Samuel Johnson "Introduction to the Propylaen" by J.W. von Goethe "Prefaces to Various Volumes of Poems" by William Wordsworth "Appendix to Lyrical Ballads" by William Wordsworth "Essay Supplementary to Preface" by William Wordsworth "Preface to Cromwell" by Victor Hugo "Preface to Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman "Introduction to the History of English Literature" by H.A. Taine
Volume 40: English Poetry 1, Numerous titles
Volume 41: English Poetry 2, Numerous titles
Volume 42: English Poetry 3, Numerous titles
Volume 43: Introductory Note "The Voyages to Vinland" (c. 1000) "The Letter of Columbus to Luis de Sant Angel Announcing His Discovery" (1493) "Amerigo Vespucci’s Account of His First Voyage" (1497) "John Cabot’s Discovery of North America" (1497) "First Charter of Virginia" (1606) "The Mayflower Compact" (1620) "The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut" (1639) "The Massachusetts Body of Liberties" (1641) "Arbitrary Government Described and the Government of the Massachusetts Vindicated from that Aspersion" by John Winthrop (1644) "The Instrument of Government" (1653) "A Healing Question" by Sir Henry Vane" (1656) "John Eliot’s "Brief Narrative" (1670) "Declaration of Rights" (1765) "The Declaration of Independence" (1776) "The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence" (1775) "Articles of Confederation" (1777) "Articles of Capitulation, Yorktown" (1781) "Treaty with Great Britain" (1783) "Constitution of the United States" (1787) "The Federalist", Nos. 1 and 2 (1787) "Opinion of Chief Justice Marshall, in the Case of McCulloch vs. the State of Maryland" (1819) "Washington’s First Inaugural Address" (1789) "Treaty with the Six Nations" (1794) "Washington’s Farewell Address" (1796) "Treaty with France (Louisiana Purchase)" (1803) "Treaty with Great Britain (End of War of 1812)" (1814) "Arrangement as to the Naval Force to Be Respectively Maintained on the American Lakes" (1817) "Treaty with Spain (Acquisition of Florida)" (1819) "The Monroe Doctrine" (1823) "Webster-Ashburton Treaty with Great Britain" (1842) "Treaty with Mexico (1848) "Fugitive Slave Act" (1850) "Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address" (1861) "Emancipation Proclamation" (1863) "Haskell’s Account of the Battle of Gettysburg" "Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address" (1863) "Proclamation of Amnesty" (1863) "Lincoln’s Letter to Mrs. Bixby" (1864) "Terms of Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox" (1865) "Lee’s Farewell to His Army" (1865) "Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address" (1865) "Proclamation Declaring the Insurrection at an End" (1866) "Treaty with Russia (Alaska Purchase)" (1867) "Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands" (1898) "Recognition of the Independence of Cuba" (1898) "Treaty with Spain (Cession of Porto Rico and the Philippines)" (1898) "Convention Between the United States and the Republic of Panama" (1904)
Volume 44: Confucian Hebrew Christian
Volume 45: Christian (Part II) Buddhist Hindu Mohammedan
Volume 46: Edward the Second by Christopher Marlowe Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Volume 47: The Shoemaker's Holiday by Thomas Dekker The Alchemist by Ben Jonson Philaster by Beaumont and Fletcher The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster A New Way to Pay Old Debts by Philip Massinger
Volume 48: Thoughts, letters, and minor works by Blaise Pascal
Volume 49: Beowulf The Song of Roland The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs Songs from The Elder Edda
Volume 50: The Editor's Introduction to the Harvard Classics Reader's Guide to the Harvard Classics
Bonus Volume 51: Lectures on The Harvard Classics
- The Harvard Classics, Twenty Volumes of Fiction:
Volume 1, The History of Tom Jones, part 1 by Henry Fielding
Volume 2, The History of Tom Jones, part 2 by Henry Fielding
Volume 3, A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne and Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Volume 4, Guy Mannering by Sir Walter Scott
Volume 5, Vanity Fair, part 1, by William Makepeace Thackeray
Volume 6, Vanity Fair, part 2, by William Makepeace Thackeray
Volume 7, David Copperfield, part 1, by Charles Dickens
Volume 8, David Copperfield, part 2, by Charles Dickens
Volume 9, The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
Volume 10, The Scarlet Letter and Rappaccini's Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving Eleonora, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Purloined Letter, by Edgar Allan Poe The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, and The Idyl of Red Gulch, by Francis Bret Harte Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog, by Samuel L. Clemens The Man Without a Country, by Edward Everett Hale
Volume 11, The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
Volume 12, Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor Marie Hugo
Volume 13, Old Goriot, by Honoré Balzac The Devil's Pool, by George Sand The Story of a White Blackbird, by Alfred de Musset The Siege of Berlin, The Last Class—The Story of a Little Alsatian, The Child Spy, The Game of Billiards, and The Bad Zouave, by Alphonse Daudet Walter Schnaffs’ Adventure and Two Friends, by Guy de Maupassant
Volume 14, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Volume 15, The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Johann Wolfgang Goethe The Banner of the Upright Seven, by Gottfried Keller The Rider on the White Horse, by Theodor Storm Trials and Tribulations, by Theodor Fontane
Volume 16, Anna Karenina, part 1, by Leo Tolstoy
Volume 17, Anna Karenina, part 2, and Ivan the Fool, by Leo Tolstoy
Volume 18, Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Volume 19, A House of Gentlefolk and Fathers and Children, by Ivan Turgenev
Volume 20, Pepita Jimenez, by Juan Valera A Happy Boy, by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson Skipper Worse, by Alexander L. Kielland.
I refer you to a classic list that I posted years ago.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1763248/posts?q=1&;page=27
The new woke Harvard will be publishing a 100 volume “Harvard Assics”. Collections include: “Calcul-US, no correct answers required”, “A Kennedy Reading Regimen (no literacy required)”, and “Standards? Make your own and don’t follow them.”
I’m busy buying books that were widely available when I was a child, most of which no longer exist.
Anyone who doesn’t have the My Book House collection should try to grab them.
I used to be interested in how to conceal and preserve firearms. Now, God have mercy, I want to know how to hide Aesop’s fables and Grimm’s fairy tales.
I have the original collection of Harvard Classics that I bought years ago. I keep them in an enclosed bookshelf. I always figured that they would make for good reading at during the end of the world.
I wish I still had all of the books I read as a child (yes, we had a set of My Book House). Most of them were in pretty sorry shape, though, after six children got through with them.
my mother had a whole set of the Harvard Classics....I think my sister has them now....nicely blud bound books....
You realize that when you do integral calculus, you can never know what the right answer was, because there’s a constant of integration which is unknowable.
PLUS A CONSTANT
Two mathematicians are in a bar. The first one says to the second that the average person knows very little about basic mathematics. The second one disagrees, and claims that most people can cope with a reasonable amount of math.
The first mathematician goes off to the washroom, and in his absence the second calls over the waitress. He tells her that in a few minutes, after his friend has returned, he will call her over and ask her a question. All she has to do is answer one third x cubed.
She repeats “one thir — dex cue”?
He repeats “one third x cubed”.
She says, “one thir dex cuebd”?
Yes, that’s right, he says. So she agrees, and goes off mumbling to herself, “one thir dex cuebd...”.
The first guy returns and the second proposes a bet to prove his point, that most people do know something about basic math. He says he will ask the blonde waitress an integral, and the first laughingly agrees. The second man calls over the waitress and asks “what is the integral of x squared?”.
The waitress says “one third x cubed” and while walking away, turns back and says over her shoulder “plus a constant!”
ML/NJ
Thanks!
Math jokes are my favorite!
Thank you King, might be a couple of years before I get to that list. I wonder how many books are on both lists ?
Another collection I missed in public ed, Jim you’re not from Mass originally are you ?
Unfortunately I only have half a collection but hopefully can find a complete set this year.
It is racist because it was made in the early 20th Century but it’s a lot cheaper than cable.
Whoa, $1500 for that collection !
Negative.
Kindle sells the entire set, Harvard Classics plus the “Five Foot Shelf” for $1.99. Amazing.
I’m working my way through along with other books from my reading list.
Some, several books I’m reading, I’ve read before but it’s as if I never read them before. I suppose over time, besides the fog of memory, the fact is that I’ve changed a bit and so it really is as if I never read them.
Years ago I bought the “Great Books” set, then later picked up the Walter Black” series, and made inroads into each. But other books on my reading list always eventually got in the way. I have more time now and am able to keep both going.
I used to print books I’d find for free on line 20 pages at a time and read the over lunch. Amazing how much you can do over time if you are religious about it.
I have frequently said that the best education in the world was 4 years in the navy and a set of Harvard Classics... Of course in real life I was never in the navy, but I still believe it.
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