Harvard Classics

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Harvard Classics books

The Harvard Classics , originally known as Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf , are a 51-volume collection of the classic works of world literature . It was compiled and edited by the President of Harvard University , Charles William Eliot , and published for the first time in 1909.

selection

Charles William Eliot

Eliot worked with William A. Neilson, a professor of English, for a year; Eliot selected the works and Neilson selected the editions and wrote the introductions. Each volume has 400 to 450 pages and contains as much as possible whole works or whole parts of the written legacy.

Throughout the 20th century, inclusion has been discussed by authors such as Charles Dickens , Rudyard Kipling , John Steinbeck , PG Wodehouse, and Arthur Conan Doyle . A hardback version of Harvard Classics is currently being published by Easton Press and a paperback version is being published by Kessinger Publishing.

The Harvard Classics

NEW YORK: PF COLLIER & SON, 1909-1917

The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction

The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction was selected by Charles W. Eliot with notes and introductions by William Allan Neilson. It also has an index of reviews and interpretations.

Similar book collections

The concept of education through the systematic reading of these groundbreaking works was carried forward by John Erskine at Columbia University and, in the 1930s, Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins at the University of Chicago , who connected this idea with the concept of education through the study of "great Books ”and“ great ideas ”of Western civilization. This led to its publication in 1952 in the Great Books of the Western World . In 1937, under Stringfellow Barr, St. John's College developed a curriculum based on the "great books". These book series are still interesting for homeschooling today .

Web links

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