The Harvard Classics

Created: September 06, 2024 | Updated: August 06, 2025 | Read markdown | About these notes | View in context | Study these flashcards

The Harvard Classics are a 50-volume series of books compiled in 1910 by Charles W. Eliot, then president of Harvard, which were claimed to give the reader a liberal education in 15 minutes of reading a day. I thought it would be fun to read some of these books, so this tracks my progress.

Resources

  • Volume 50 of the set contains an editors introduction, reader’s guide, and an index. These are split into two classes: Class I and Class II.
    • Class I contains “works regarded by their authors as history, but includes letters, dramas, novels and the like, which, by virtue of their character, period, or scene, throw light upon social and intellectual conditions”.
    • Class II contains the rest.
  • The classes are:
    • Class I: The History of Civilization
    • Class I: Religion and Philosophy
    • Class I: Education
    • Class I: Science
    • Class I: Politics
    • Class I: Voyages and Travels
    • Class I: Criticism of Literature and the Fine Arts
    • Class II: Drama
    • Class II: Biography and Letters
    • Class II: Essays
    • Class II: Narrative Poetry and Prose Fiction
  • Editor’s Introduction, Reader’s Guide and Index (Reader’s guide starts on page 28 of the PDF)
  • Learnstrong.net contains excellent free video lectures produced by Dr. Tom McGee on (as of writing) the first 39 volumes.
  • Project Gutenberg contains free e-book versions of (almost) every book.
  • “Harvard Classics” on Wikipedia contains a lot of information and the list of contents.

Volumes

This is a list of volumes. Each book contains resources like a good EPUB copy and videos.



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