Reading Check Lists for Major Series: Great Books of the Western World

Homer

• The Iliad | (Richmond Lattimore)
• The Odyssey | (Richmond Lattimore)

Aeschylus

• The Suppliant Maidens | (Seth G. Benardete)
• The Persians | (Seth G. Benardete)
• Seven Against Thebes | (David Grene)
• Prometheus Bound | (David Grene)

Sophocles

Euripides

• Rhesus | (Richmond Lattimore)
• The Medea | (Rex Warner)
• Hippolytus | (David Grene)
• Alcestis | (Richmond Lattimore)
• The Heracleiadae | (Ralph Gladstone)
• The Suppliant Women | (Frank William Jones)
• The Trojan Women | (Richmond Lattimore)
• Ion | (Ronald Frederick Willetts)
• Helen | (Richmond Lattimore
• Andromache | (John Frederick Nims)
• Electra | (Emily Townsend Vermeule)
• The Bacchae | (William Arrowsmith)
• Hecuba | (William Arrowsmith)
• Heracles | (William Arrowsmith)
• The Phoenician Women | (Elizabeth Wyckoff)
• Orestes | (William Arrowsmith)
• Iphigenia in Tauris | (Witter Bynner)
• Iphigenia in Aulis | (Charles R. Walker)
• The Cyclops | (William Arrowsmith)

Aristophanes

• The Acharnians | (Alan H. Sommerstein)
• The Knights | (Alan H. Sommerstein)
• The Clouds | (Alan H. Sommerstein)
• The Wasps | (David Barrett)
• Peace | (Alan H. Sommerstein)
• The Birds | (David Barrett)
• The Frogs | (David Barrett)
• Lysistrata | (Alan H. Sommerstein)
• The Poet and the Women | (David Barrett)
• The Assemblywomen | (David Barrett)
• Wealth | (Alan H. Sommerstein)

Herodotus

• The History | (George Rawlinson)

Thucydides

• The History of the Peloponnesian War | (Richard Rawley)

Plato

Aristotle

• Categories | (E.M. Edghill)
• On Interpretation | (E.M. Edghill)
• Prior Analytics | (A.J. Jenkinson)
• Posterior Analytics | (G.R.G. Mure)
• Topics | (W.A. Pickard-Cambridge)
• On Sophistical Refutations | (W.A. Pickard-Cambridge)
• Physics | (R.P. Hardie, and R.K. Gaye)
• On the Heavens | (J.L. Stocks)
• On Generation and Corruption | (H.H. Joachim)
• Meteorology | (E.W. Webster)
• Metaphysics | (W.D. Ross)
• On the Soul | (J.A. Smith)
• On Sense and the Sensible | (J.I. Beare)
• On Memory and Reminiscence | (J.I. Beare)
• On Sleep and Sleeplessness | (J.I. Beare)
• On Dreams | (J.I. Beare)
• On Prophesying by Dreams | (J.I. Beare)
• On Longevity and Shortness of Life | (G.R.T. Ross)
• On Youth and Old Age, On Life and Death, On Breathing | (G.R.T. Ross)
• History of Animals | (D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson)
• On the Parts of Animals | (William Ogle)
• On the Motion of Animals | (A.S.L. Farquharson)
• On the Gait of Animals | (A.S.L. Farquharson)
• On the Generation of Animals | (Arthur Platt)
• Nicomachean Ethics | (W.D. Ross)
• Politics | (Benjamin Jowett)
• Athenian Constitution | (Sir Frederic G. Kenyon)
• Rhetoric | (W. Rhys Roberts)
• On Poetics | (Ingram Bywater)

Hippocrates

Galen

• On the Natural Faculties | (Arthur John Brock)

Euclid

• Euclid, Elements | (Sir Thomas L. Heath)

Archimedes

Apollonius of Perga

• Treatise on Conic Sections

Nicomachus of Gerasa

• Introduction to Arithmetic by Micomachus | (Martin L. D’Ooge)

Lucretius

• The Way Things Are | (Rolfe Humphries)

Epictetus

• Discourses | (George Long)

Marcus Aurelius

• Meditations | (George Long)

Plotinus

• The Six Enneads | (Stephen MacKenna and B.S. Page)

Virgil

• The Eclogues | (C. Day Lewis)
• The Georgics | (C. Day Lewis)
• The Aeneid | (C. Day Lewis)

Plutarch

• The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans | (John Dryden)

Cornelius Tacitus

• The Annals | (Alfred John Church, and William Jackson Brodribb)
• The Histories | (Alfred John Church, and William Jackson Brodribb)

Ptolemy

• The Almagest | (R. Catesby Taliaferro)

Nicolaus Copernicus (Renaissance)

• On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres | (Charles Glenn Wallis)

Johannes Kepler (Renaissance)

• Epitome of Copernican Astronomy IV-V | (Charles Glenn Wallis)
• The Harmonies of the World V | (Charles Glenn Wallis)

Augustine of Hippo

• The Confessions | (R.S. Pine-Coffin)
• The City of God | (Marcus Dods)
• On Christian Doctrine | (J.F. Shaw)

Thomas Aquinas

• Summa Theologica Volume 1 | (Father Laurence Shapcote)
• Summa Theologica Volume 2 | (Father Laurence Shapcote)

Dante

• The Divine Comedy | (Charles S. Singleton)

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Troilus and Criseyde | (Nevill Coghill)
• The Canterbury Tales | (Nevill Coghill)

John Calvin

• Institutes of the Christian Religion | Institutes of the Christian Religion (Henry Beveridge)

Nicolò Machiavelli

• The Prince | (W.K. Marriott)

Thomas Hobbes

• Leviathan | (Nelle Fuller)

François Rabelais

• Gargatua and Pantagruel | (Sir Thomas Urquhart and Peter Motteux)

Desiderius Erasmus

• Praise of Folly | (Betty Radice)

Michel de Montaigne

• The Essays | (Donald M. Frame)

William Shakespeare

• The First Part of King Henry the Sixth | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• King Richard the Third | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• The Comedy of Errors | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• Titus Andronicus | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• The Taming of the Shrew | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• Love’s Labour’s Lost | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• Romeo and Juliet | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• King Richard the Second | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• King John | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• The Merchant of Venice | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• The First Part of King Henry the Fourth | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• Much Ado About Nothing | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• King Henry the Fifth | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• Julius Caesar | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• As You Like It | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume I
• Twelfth Night; or What You Will | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Hamlet | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• The Merry Wives of Windsor | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Troilus and Cressida | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• All’s Well That Ends Well | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Measure for Measure | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Othello, the Moor of Venice | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• King Lear | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Macbeth | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Antony and Cleopatra | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Coriolanus | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Timon of Athens | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Cymbeline | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Winter’s Tale | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• The Tempest | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• King Henry the Eighth | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II
• Sonnets | The Plays and Sonnets, Volume II

William Gilbert

• On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies | (P. Fleury Mottelay)

Galileo Galilei

• Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences | (Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio)

William Harvey

• An Anatomical Disquisition on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals | (Robert Willis)
• On the Circulation of the Blood | (Robert Willis)
• Anatomical Exercises on the Generation of Animals | (Robert Willis)

Miguel de Cervantes

• The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha | (Samuel Putnam)

Francis Bacon

• Advancement of Learningi | Advancement of Learning
• Novum Organum | Novum Organum
• New Atlantis | New Atlantis

René Descartes

• Rules for the Direction of the Mind | (Elizabeth S. Haldane, and G.R.T. Ross)
• Discourse on the Method | (Elizabeth S. Haldane, and G.R.T. Ross)
• Meditations on First Philosophy | (Elizabeth S. Haldane, and G.R.T. Ross)
• Objections Against the Meditations and Replies | (Elizabeth S. Haldane, and G.R.T. Ross)
• Geometry | (David Eugene Smith, and Marcia L. Latham)

Benedict de Spinoza

• Ethics | (W.H. White)

John Milton

• English Minor Poems | English Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica
• Sonnets | English Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica
• Psalms | English Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica
• Paradise Lost | English Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica
• Samson Agonistes | English Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica
• Arepagitica | English Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica

Blaise Pascal

• The Provincial Letters | The Provincial Letters; Pensées; Scientific Treatises
• Pensées | The Provincial Letters; Pensées; Scientific Treatises
• Scientific Treatises | The Provincial Letters; Pensées; Scientific Treatises

Molière

• The School for Wives | (Morris Bishop)
• The Critique of the School for Wives | (Morris Bishop)
• Tartuffe | (Morris Bishop)
• Don Juan | (John Wood)
• The Miser | (Wallace Fowlie)
• The Would-Be Gentleman | (Morris Bishop)
• The Would-Be Invalid | (Morris Bishop)

Jean Racine

• Berenice | (Samuel Solomon)
• Phaedra | (Samuel Solomon)

Sir Isaac Newton

• Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophyi | (Andrew Mott)
• Optics | Optics

Christiaan Huygens

• Treatise on Light | (Silvanus P. Thompson)

John Locke

• A Letter Concerning Toleration | (William Popple)
• Second Essay on Civil Government | Second Essay on Civil Government

George Berkeley

• The Principles of Human Knowledge | The Principles of Human Knowledge

David Hume

• An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Jonathan Swift

• Gulliver’s Travels | Gulliver’s Travels

Voltaire

• Candide | Candide (Peter Gay)

Denis Diderot

• Rameau’s Nephew | Rameau’s Nephew (Jacques Brazu)

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

• The Spirit of Laws | The Spirit of Laws (Thomas Nugent)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• On the Origin of Inequality | On the Origin of Inequality (G.D.H. Cole)
• A Discourse on Political Economy | On Political Economy (G.D.H. Cole)
• The Social Contract | The Social Contract (G.D.H. Cole)

Adam Smith

• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations | An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Edward Gibbon

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire | The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I
• The Decond and Fall of the Roman Empire | The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II

Immanuel Kant

• The Critique of Pure Reason | (J.M.D. Meiklejohn)
• Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals | (Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)
• The Critique of Practical Reason | (Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)
• Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, With a Note on Conscience | (Thomas Kingsmill Abbott)
• General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals | (W. Hastie)
• The Science of Right | (W. Hastie)
• The Critique of Judgement | (James Creed Meredith)

American State Papers

• Declaration of Independence | Declaration of Independence
• Articles of Confederation | Articles of Confederation
• The Constitution of the United States of America | The Constitution

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

• The Federalist Papers | The Federalist

John Stuart Mill

• On Liberty | On Liberty
• Representative Government | Representative Government
• Utilitarianism | Utilitarianism

James Boswell

• The Life of Samuel Johnson | Life of Samuel Johnson

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier

• Elements of Chemistry |Elements of Chemistry (Robert Kerr)

Michael Faraday

• Experimental Researches in Eletricity | Experimental Researches in Electricity

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

• The Philosophy of Right | The Philosophy of Right (T.M. Knox)
• The Philosophy of History | The Philosophy of History (J. Sibree)

Søren Kierkegaard

• Fear and Trembling | Fear and Trembling (Walter Lowrie)

Friedrich Nietzsche

• Beyond Good and Evil | Beyond Good and Evil (Walter Lowrie)

Alexis de Tocqueville

• Democracy in America | Democracy in America (George Lawrence)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Faust | (Philip Wayne)

Honoré de Balzac

• Cousin Bette | (Marion Ayton Crawford)

Jane Austen

• Emma

George Eliot

• Middlemarch

Charles Dickens

• Little Dorrit

Herman Melville

• Moby Dick; or, The Whale

Mark Twain

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Charles Darwin

• The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
• The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

Karl Marx

• Capital | (Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling)

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

• Manifesto of the Communist Party | (Samuel Moore)

Leo Tolstoy

• War and Peace | (Louise Maude and Aylmer Maude)

Fyodor Dostoevsky

• The Brothers Karamazov | (Constance Garnett)

Henrik Ibsen

• A Doll’s House | (James W. McFarlane)
• The Wild Duck | (James W. McFarlane)
• Hedda Gabler | (Jens Arup)
• The Master Builder | (James W. McFarlane)

William James (also see below)

• The Principles of Psychology

Sigmund Freud

• The Origin and Development of Psycho-analysis | (1910) (Harry W. Chase)
• Selected Papers on Hysteria (chapters 1–10) | (1893–1908) (A.A. Brill)
• The Sexual Enlightenment of Children
• The Future Prospects of Psycho-analytic Therapy | (1910) (Joan Riviere)
• Observations on “Wild” Psycho-analysis | (1910) (Joan Riviere)
• The Interpretation of Dreams | (1900) (A.A. Brill)
• On Narcissism | (1914) (Cecil M. Baines)
• Instincts and Their Vicissitudes | (1915) (Cecil M. Baines)
• Repression | (1915) (Cecil M. Baines)
• The Unconscious | (1915), (Cecil M. Baines)
• A General Introduction to Psycho-analysis | (1915–17) (Joan Riviere)
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle | (1920) (C.J.M. Hubback)
• Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego | (1921) (James Strachey)
• The Ego and the Id | (1923) (Joan Riviere)
• Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety | (1926) (Alix Strachey)
• Thoughts for the Times on War and Death | (1915) (E. Colburn Mayne)
• Civilization and Its Discontents | (1929) (Joan Riviere)
• New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis | (1932) (W.J.H. Sprott)

Philosophy and Religion: Philosophy

Philosophy and Religion: Religion

Natural Science: Physical Sciences

Natural Science: Life Sciences

Social Science: Economics

Social Science: Anthropology, History and Sociology

Imaginative Literature

Daniel DEFOE (1660-1731)

• Robinson Crusoe

Rudyard KIPLING (1865-1936)

• “Mowgli’s Brothers” from The Jungle Book

Victor HUGO (1802-1885)

• “The Battle with the Cannon” from Ninety-three

Guy De MAUPASSANT (1850-1893)

• “Two Friends”

Ernest HEMINGWAY (1899-1961)

• “The Killers” from Men without Women

Sir Walter SCOTT (1771-1832)

• “The Two Drovers” from Chronicles of the Canongate

Joseph CONRAD (1857-1924)

• “Youth”

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778)

• Micromegas

Oscar WILDE (1854- 1900)

• “The Happy Prince” from The Happy Prince and Other Tales

Edgar Allan POE (1809-1849)

• “The Tell-Tale Heart”
• “The Masque of the Red Death”

Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850-1894)

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Mark TWAIN (Samuel Clemens 1835-1910)

• The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

Charles DICKENS (1812-1870)

• “A Full and Faithful Report of the Memorable Trial of Bardell against Pickwick” from The Pickwick Papers

Nikolai GOGOL (1809-1852)

• “The Overcoat”

Samuel BUTLER (1835-1902)

• “Customs and Opinions of the Erewhonians” from Erewhon

Sherwood ANDERSON (1876-1941)

• “I’m a Fool”

ANONYMOUS (c. early 13th Century)

• Aucassin and Nicolette

Stephen CRANE (1871-1900)

• “The Open Boat”

Herman MELVILLE (1819-1891)

• “Billy Budd” from Billy Budd, Sailor

Ivan BUNIN (1870-1953)

• “The Gentleman from San Francisco”

Nathaniel HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)

• “Rappaccini’s Daughter” from Mosses from an Old Manse

George ELIOT (1819-1880)

• “The Lifted Veil”

Lucius APULEIUS (fl. 2nd Century)

• “Cupid and Psyche” from The Golden Ass

Ivan TURGENEV (1818-1883)

• “First Love”

Fyodor DOSTOEVSKY (1828-1910)

• “White Nights”

John GALSWORTHY (1867-1933)

• “The Apple-Tree”

Gustave FLAUBERT (1821-1880)

• “The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller” from Three Tales

F. Scott FITZGERALD (1869-1940)

• “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” from Tales of the Jazz Age

Honore De BALZAC (1799-1850)

• “A Passion in the Desert”

Anton CHEKHOV (1860-1904)

• “The Darling”

Isaac SINGER (b. 1904)

• “The Spinoza of Market Street”

Alexander PUSHKIN (1799-1837)

• “The Queen of Spades”

D. H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930)

• “The Rocking-Horse Winner” from The Lovely Lady

Henry JAMES (1843-1916)

• “The Pupil”

Thomas MANN (1875-1955)

• “Mario and the Magician” from Stories of Three Decades

Isak DINESEN (1885-1962)

• “Sorrow-Acre” from Winter’s Tales

Leo TOLSTOY (1828-1910)

• “The Death of Ivan Ilyitch”
• “The Three Hermits”
• “What Men Live By”

MOLIERE (1622-1673)

• The Misanthrope
• The Doctor in Spite of Himself

Richard SHERIDAN (1751-1816)

• The School for Scandal

Henrik IBSEN (1828-1906)

• An Enemy of the People

Anton CHEKHOV (1860-1904)

• The Cherry Orchard

George Bernard SHAW (1856-1950)

• The Man of Destiny

John M. SYNGE (1871-1909)

• Riders to the Sea

Eugene O’NEILL (1888-1953)

• The Emperor Jones

Critical Essays

Virginia WOOLF (1882-1941)

• “How Should One Read a Book?” from The Second Common Reader

Matthew ARNOLD (1822-1888)

• “The Study of Poetry” from The English Poets, T. H. Ward, Ed.

• “Sweetness and Light” from Culture and Anarchy

Charles Augustin SAINTE-BEUVE (1804-1869)

• “What Is a Classic?”
• “Montaigne”

Sir Francis BACON (1561-1626)

• “Of Beauty” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Discourse” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Studies” from Essays, Civil and Moral

David HUME (1711-1776)

• “Of the Standard of Taste” from Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

Arthur SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

• “On Style” from Essays in Ethics and Politics
• “On Some Forms of Literature” from Essays in Ethics and Politics
• “On the Comparative Place of Interest and Beauty in Works of Art”

Friedrich SCHILLER (1759-1805)

• “On Simple and Sentimental Poetry” from Essays Aesthetical and Philosophical

Percy Bysshe SHELLEY (1792-1822)

• “A Defence of Poetry”

Walt WHITMAN (1819-1892)

• Preface to Leaves of Grass

William HAZLITT (1778-1830)

• “My First Acquaintance with Poets”
• “On Swift”
• “Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen”

Charles LAMB (1775-1834)

• “My First Play”
• “Dream Children, a Reverie”
• “Sanity of True Genius”

Samuel JOHNSON (1709-1784)

• Preface to Shakespeare

Thomas DE QUINCEY (1785-1859)

• “Literature of Knowledge and Literature of Power”
• “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth”

Thomas Stearns ELIOT (1888-1965)

• “Dante”
• “Tradition and the Individual Talent” from Selected Essays (New Ed.)

John Stuart MILL (1806-1873)

• “Childhood and Youth” from Autobiography

Mark TWAIN (Samuel Clemens 1835-1910)

• “Learning the River” from Life an the Mississippi

Jean De LA BRUYERE (1645-1696)

• “Characters” from A Book of Characters

Thomas CARLYLE (1795-1881)

• “The Hero as King” from On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History

Ralph Waldo EMERSON (1803-1882)

• “Thoreau”

Nathaniel HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)

• “Sketch of Abraham Lincoln”

Walt WHITMAN (1819-1892)

• “Death of Abraham Lincoln”

Virginia WOOLF (1882-1941)

• “The Art of Biography” from The Death of the Moth

XENOPHON (c. 430 B.C.-c. 355 B.C.)

• “The March to the Sea” from The Persian Expedition
• “The Character of Socrates” from Memorabilia

William H. PRESCOTT (1796-1859)

• “The Land of Montezuma” from The Conquest of Mexico

Haniel LONG (1888-1956)

• “The Power within Us”

PLINY the Younger (c. 61-c. 113)

• “The Eruption of Vesuvius” from Letters

Cornelius TACITUS (c. 55-c. 120)

• “The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola”

Francois GUIZOT (1787-1874)

• “Civilization” from History of Civilization in Europe

Henry ADAMS (1838-1918)

• “The United States in 1800” from History of the United States of America

John Bagnell BURY (1861-1927)

• “Herodotus” from The Ancient Greek Historians

LUCIAN (c. 125-c. 190)

• “The Way to Write History”

Great Documents

• The English Bill of Rights (1689)
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789)
• The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
• The Declaration of Independence (1776)
• Charter of the United Nations (1945)
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

Thomas PAINE (1737-1809)

• “A Call to Patriots – December 23, 1776” from The Crisis

George WASHINGTON (1732-1799)

• “Circular Letter to the Governors of All the States on Disbanding the Army”
• “The Farewell Address”

Thomas JEFFERSON (1743-1826)

• “The Virginia Constitution” from Notes on Virginia
• “First Inaugural Address”
• “Biographical Sketches”

Benjamin FRANKLIN (1706-1790)

• “A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America”
• “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania”

Jean De CREVECOEUR (1735-1813)

• “The Making of Americans” from Letters from an American Farmer

Alexis De TOCQUEVILLE (1805-1859)

• “Observations on American Life and Government” from Democracy in America

Henry David THOREAU (1817-1862)

• “Civil Disobedience”
• “A Plea for Captain John Brown”

Abraham LINCOLN (1809-1865)

• “Address at Cooper Institute”
• “First Inaugural Address”
• “Letter to Horace Greeley”
• “Meditation on the Divine Will”
• “The Gettysburg Address”
• “Second Inaugural Address”
• “Last Public Address”

Sir Francis BACON (1561-1626)

• “Of Youth and Age” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Parents and Children” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Marriage and Single Life” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Great Place” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Seditions and Troubles” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Custom and Education” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Followers and Friends” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Usury” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Riches” from Essays, Civil and Moral

Jonathan SWIFT (1667-1745)

• “Resolutions when I Come to Be Old”
• “An Essay on Modern Education”
• “A Meditation upon a Broomstick”
• “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country”

David HUME (1711-1776)

• “Of Refinement in the Arts” from Essays, Moral, Political and Literary
• “Of Money” from Essays, Moral, Political and Literary
• “Of the Balance of Trade” from Essays, Moral, Political and Literary
• “Of Taxes”from Essays, Moral, Political and Literary
• “Of the Study of History” from Essays, Moral, Political and Literary

PLUTARCH (c. 46-120)

• “Of Bashfulness” from Moralia

Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850-1894)

• “The Lantern-Bearers” from Across the Plains

John RUSKIN (1819-1900)

• “An Idealist’s Arraignment of the Age” from Four Clavigera

William JAMES (1842-1910)

• “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings”
• “The Energies of Men”
• “Great Men and Their Environment”

Arthur SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

• “On Education” from Studies in Pessimism

Michael FARADAY

• “Observations on Mental Education” from Lectures on Education

Edmund BURKE (1729-1797)

• “Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol”

John C. CALHOUN (1782-1850)

• “The Concurrent Majority” from A Disquisition on Government

Thomas Babington MACAULAY

• “Machiavelli” from Critical and Historical Essays

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778)

• “English Men and Ideas” from Letters on the English

DANTE Aligheri (1265-1321)

• “On World Government” from De Monarchia

Jean Jacques ROUSSEAU (1712-1778)

• “A Lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe” from A Lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe and the State of War

Immanuel KANT (1724-1804)

• “Perpetual Peace”

Karl Von CLAUSEWITZ (1780-1831)

• “What Is War?” from On War

Thomas Robert MALTHUS (1766-1834)

• “The Principle of Population” from Population: The First Essay

Francis BACON (1561-1626)

• “The Sphinx” from The Wisdom of the Ancients: A Series of Mythological Fables

John TYNDALL (1820-1893)

• “Michael Faraday” from Faraday as a Discoverer

Eve CURIE (b. 1904)

• “The Discovery of Radium” from Madame Curie

Charles Robert DARWIN (1809-1882)

• “Autobiography” from Charles Darwin’s Autobiography

Jean Henri FABRE (1823-1915)

• “A Laboratory of the Open Fields” from The Life of the Fly
• “The Sacred Beetle” from The Sacred Beetle and Others

Loren EISELEY (b. 1907)

• “On Time” from The Immense Journey

Rachel L. CARSON (1907-1964)

• “The Sunless Sea” from The Sea Around Us

J. B. S. HALDANE (1892-1964)

• “On Being the Right Size” from Possible Worlds

Thomas Henry HUXLEY (1825-1895)

• “On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals” from Man’s Place in Nature and Other Anthropological Essays
• “On a Piece of Chalk”

Sir Francis GALTON (1822-1911)

• “The Classification of Human Ability” from Hereditary Genius

Claude BERNARD (1813-1878)

• “Experimental Considerations Common to Living Things and Inorganic Bodies” from An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine

Ivan Petrovich PAVLOV (1849-1936)

• “Scientific Study of the So-called Psychical Processes in the Higher Animals” from Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

Friedrich WOHLER (1800-1882)

• “On the Artificial Production of Urea”

Sir Charles LYELL (1797-1875)

• “Geological Evolution” from The Principles of Geology

GALILEO Galilei (1564-1642)

• “The Starry Messenger”

Tommaso CAMPANELLA (1568-1639)

• “Arguments for and against Galileo” from The Defense of Galileo

Michael FARADAY (1791-1867)

• The Chemical History of a Candle

Dmitri MENDELEEV (1834-1907)

• “The Genesis of a Law of Nature” from The Periodic Law of the Chemical Elements

H. L. F. Von HELMHOLTZ (1821-1894)

• “On the Conservation of Force”

Albert EINSTEIN (1879-1955) & Leopold INFELD (1898-1968)

• “The Rise and Decline of Classical Physics” from The Evolution of Physics

Sir Arthur EDDINGTON (1882-1944)

• “The Running-Down of the Universe” from Nature and the Physical World

Sir James JEANS (1877-1946)

• “Beginnings and Endings” from The Universe Around Us

Kees BOEKE (b. 1884)

• “Cosmic View”

Lancelot HOGBEN (b. 1895)

• “Mathematics, the Mirror of Civilization” from Mathematics for the Million

Andrew Russell FORSYTH (1858-1942)

• “Mathematics, in Life and Thought”

Alfred North WHITEHEAD (1861-1947)

• “On Mathematical Method” from An Introduction to Mathematics
• “On the Nature of a Calculus” from A Treatise on Universal Algebra

Bertrand RUSSELL (1872-1970)

• “The Study of Mathematics” from Mysticism and Logic
• “Mathematics and the Metaphysicians” from Mysticism and Logic
• “Definition of Number” from Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy

Edward KASNER (1878-1955) and James R. NEWMAN (1907-1966)

• “New Names for Old” from Mathematics and the Imagination
• “Beyond the Googol” from Mathematics and the Imagination

Tobias DANTZIG (1884-1956)

• “Fingerprints” from Number: the Language of Science
• “The Empty Column” from Number: the Language of Science

Leonhard EULER (1707-1783)

• “The Seven Bridges of Konigsberg”

Norman Robert CAMPBELL (1880-1949)

• “Measurement” from What Is Science?
• “Numerical Laws and the Use of Mathematics in Science” from What Is Science?

William Kingdon CLIFFORD (1845-1879)

• “The Postulates of the Science of Space” from The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences

Henri POINCARE

• “Space” from Science and Hypothesis
• “Mathematical Creation”
• “Chance” from Science and Method

Pierre Simon De LAPLACE (1749-1827)

• “Probability” from A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

Charles Sanders PEIRCE (1839-1914)

• “The Red and the Black”

John ERSKINE (1879-1951)

• “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” from The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent

William Kingdon CLIFFORD (1845-1879)

• “The Ethics of Belief” from Lectures and Essays

William JAMES (1842-1910)

• “The Will to Believe” from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
• “The Sentiment of Rationality” from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy

John DEWEY (1859-1852)

• “The Process of Thought” from How We Think

EPICURUS (c. 341 B.C.-c. 271 B.C.)

• “Letter to Herodotus”
• “Letter to Menoeceus”

EPICTETUS (c. 60-c. 138)

• The Enchiridion

Walter Horatio PATER (1839-1894)

• “The Art of Life” from The Renaissance

PLUTARCH (c. 46-120)

• “Contentment” from Moralia

CICERO (106-43 B.C.)

• “On Friendship”
• “On Old Age”

Sir Francis BACON (1561-1626)

• “Of Truth” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Death” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Adversity” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Love” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Friendship” from Essays, Civil and Moral
• “Of Anger” from Essays, Civil and Moral

George SANTAYANA (1863-1952)

• “Lucretius” from Three Philosophical Poets
• “Goethe’s Faust” from Three Philosophical Poets

Henry ADAMS (1838-1910)

• “St. Thomas Aquinas” from Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778)

• “The Philosophy of Common Sense” from Philosophical Dictionary

John Stuart MILL (1806-1873)

• “Nature” from Three Essays on Religion

Ralph Waldo EMERSON (1803-1882)

• “Nature” from Essays, Second Series
• “Self-Reliance” from Essays, First Series
• “Montaigne; or, the Skeptic” from Representative Men

William HAZLITT (1778-1830)

• “On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth”

Sir Thomas BROWNE (1605-1682)

• “Immortality” from Urn-Burial

Appendix II Recommended Novels

• ALAIN-FOURNIER (real name Henri Alban Fournier), The Wanderer, 1913
• ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY, Little Women, 1868
• AMIS, KINGSLEY, Lucky Jim, 1954
• ANONYMOUS, The Arabian Nights, 8th to 15th Century
• ANONYMOUS, Burnt Nial, tr. G. W. Dasent, 12th Century
• ANONYMOUS, The Nibelungenlied, c. 1200
• ANONYMOUS, The Song of Roland, tr. A. S. Way, c. 800
• ANONYMOUS, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, tr. H. Belloc and P. Rosenfeld, 1210
• AUSTEN, JANE, Pride and Prejudice, 1813
• AUSTEN, JANE, Emma, 1815
• BAKER, DOROTHY, Young Man with a Horn, 1938
• BALZAC, HONORE DE, Eugénie Grandet, 1833
• BALZAC, HONORE DE, Old Goriot, 1835
• BELLAMY, EDWARD, Looking Backward: 2000—1887, 1888
• BOWEN, ELIZABETH, The Death of the Heart, 1938
• BRONTË, CHARLOTTE, Jane Eyre, 1847
• BRONTË, EMILY, Wuthering Heights, 1847
• BUCK, PEARL, The Good Earth, 1931
• BUNYAN, JOHN, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to the Next, 1678
• BUTLER, SAMUEL, The Way of All Flesh, 1903
• CAMUS, ALBERT, The Stranger, 1942
• CARROLL, LEWIS, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865
• CARROLL, LEWIS, Through the Looking-Glass, 1872
• CATHER, WILLA, My Antonia, 1918
• CLARK, WALTER VAN TILBURG, The Ox-Bow Incident, 1940
• CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE (“Mark Twain”), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884
• COLLINS, WILKIE, The Woman in White, 1860
• CONRAD, JOSEPH, Heart of Darkness, 1902
• CONSTANT, BENJAMIN, Adolphe, 1815
• COZZENS, JAMES GOULD, Guard of Honor, 1948
• CRANE, STEPHEN, The Red Badge of Courage, 1895
• DICKENS, CHARLES, David Copperfield, 1850
• DICKENS, CHARLES, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859
• DICKENS, CHARLES, Great Expectations, 1861
• DIDEROT, DENIS, Rameau’s Nephew, 1785
• DOSTOESSKY, FYODOR, Crime and Punishment, 1S66
• DOYLE, CONAN, The White Company, 1891
• DREISER, THEODORE, An American Tragedy, 1925
• DUMAS, ALEXANDRE (père), The Three Musketeers, 1844
• ELIOT, GEORGE, Middlemarch, 1872
• FITZGERALD, F. SCOTT, The Great Gatsby, 1925
• FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE, Madame Bovary, 1857
• FORESTER, C. S., Captain Horatio Hornblower, 1939
• FORSTER, E. M., A Passage to India, 1924
• GALSWORTHY, JOHN, The Man of Property, 1906
• GIDE, ANDRÉ, The Counterfeiters, 1925
• GLASGOW, ELLEN, Vein of Iron, 1935
• GOGOL, NIK0LA1, Dead Souls, 1842
• GOODRICH, MARCUS, Delilah, 1941
• GUTHRIE, JR., A. B., The Big Sky, 1947
• HARDY, THOMAS, The Return of the Native, 1878
• HASEK, JAROSLAV, The Good Soldier, Schweik, 1923
• HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL, The Scarlet Letter, 1850
• HEMINGWAY, ERNEST, The Old Man and the Sea, 1952
• HERSEY, JOHN, A Bell for Adano, 1944
• HUDSON, W. H., Green Mansions, 1904
• HUGHES, RICHARD, The Innocent Voyage (also published as A High Wind in Jamaica), 1929
• HUGO, VICTOR, Les Misérables, 1862
• HUXLEY, ALDOUS, Brave New World, 1932
• JAMES, HENRY, The American, 1877
• JAMES, HENRY, The Portrait of a Lady, 1881
• JOHNSON, SAMUEL, Rasselas Prince of Abyssinia, 1759
• JOYCE, JAMES, Dubliners, 1914
• KAFKA, FRANZ, The Trial, 1925
• KAFKA, FRANZ, The Castle, 1926
• KIPLING, RUDYARD, Kim, 1901
• LAFAYETTE, MME. DE, The Princess of Cleves, 1678
• LAWRENCE, D. H., Sons and Lovers, 1913
• LEWIS, SINCLAIR, Babbitt, 1922
• LONDON, JACK, The Sea-Wolf, 1904
• LONGUS, Daphnis and Chloe, 4th or 5th century
• MCCULLERS, CARSON, A Member of the Wedding, 1946
• MALORY, THOMAS, Le Morte dArthur, 1485
• MANZONI, ALESSANDRO, The Betrothed, 1826
• MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET, Of Human Bondage, 1915
• MEREDITH, GEORGE, The Egoist, 1879
• MERIMÉE, PROSPER, Carmen, 1847
• MITCHELL, MARGARET, Gone with the Wind, 1936
• MUNTZ, HOPE, The Golden Warrior, 1948
• ORWELL, GEORGE, Animal Farm, 1945
• PATON, ALAN, Cry, The Beloved Country, 1948
• PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER, The Captain’s Daughter, 1836
• RAWLINGS, MARJORIE KINNAN, The Yearling, 1938
• RENAULT, MARY, The Last of the Wine, 1956
• SALINGER, J. D., The Catcher in the Rye, 1951
• SCOTT, WALTER, The Heart of Midlothian, 1818
• SCOTT, WALTER, Ivanhoe, 1820
• SHELLEY, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, Frankenstein, 1818
• SMOLLETT, TOBIAS, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, 1770
• SNOW, C. P., The Masters, 1951
• STEINBECK, JOHN, The Red Pony, 1937
• STENDHAL (Marie Henri Beyle), The Red and the Black, 1830
• STENDHAL (Marie Henri Beyle), The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839
• STEPHENS, JAMES, The Crock of Gold, 1912
• STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS, Treasure Island, 1883
• STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS, Kidnapped, 1886
• THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE, Vanity Fair, 1847—48
• TOLSTOY, LEO, Anna Karenina, 1875—77
• TROLLOPE, ANTHONY, Barchester Towers, 1857
• TURGENEV, IVAN, Fathers and Sons, 1862
• VERGA, GIOVANNI, The House by the Medlar Tree, 1890
• VITTORINI, ELIO, In Sicily, 1949
• VOLTAIRE, FRANÇOIS MARIE AROUET DE, Candide, 1759
• WELLS, H. G., The Time Machine, 1895
• WOLFE, THOMAS, Look Homeward, Angel, 1929
• WOOLF, VIRGINIA, To the Lighthouse, 1927
• WOUK, HERMAN, The Caine Mutiny, 1951
• YOURCENAR, MARGUERITE, Memoirs of Hadrian, 1954

Appendix III Recommended Anthologies of Poetry

Volume 1 – An Introduction to the Great Books and to a Liberal Education

1. Plato, Apology & Crito
2. Plato, Republic, Book I & Book II
3. Sophocles, Oedipus the King & Antigone
4. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book I
5. Aristotle, Politics, Book I
6. Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans – Lycurgus, Numa Pompilius, Lycurgus and Numa Compared, Alexander, & Caesar
7. The Old Testament, Job
8. St. Augustine, The Confessions, Books I-VIII
9. Montaigne, The Essays – “Of Custom, and Not Easily Changing an Accepted Law”, “Of Pedantry”, “Of the Education of Children”, “It is Folly to Measure the True and False by our Own Capacity”, “Of Cannibals”, “That the Taste of Good and Evil depends in Large Part on the View We Have of Them”
10. Shakespeare, “Hamlet”
11. John Locke, “Concerning Civil Government (Second Essay)”
12. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
13. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I – Chapters XV-XVI
14. American State Papers – The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, The Federalist Papers – Nos. 1-10, No. 15, No. 31, No. 47, No. 51, & Nos. 68-72
15. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party