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Revision: 33
Title: Reading Check Lists for Major Series: Great Books of the Western World
Author: MJ. Smith
Date: 2016 Jun 11 at 02:15
Reading Check Lists for Major Series: Great Books of the Western World
Reading List
Great Books of the Western World
These books are listed in the sequence they appear in the series; links will be added when available. The idea is simply for one to be able to check off a book as read rather than to supply dates or sequence. In some cases the original language addition or alternative translations may also be given.
Ancient Greece
Herodotus
- The History (George Rawlinson)
Thucydides
- The History of the Peloponnesian War (Richard Rawley)
Plato
The Dialogues (translated by Benjamin Jowett)
- Charmides
- Lysis
- Laches
- Protagoras
- Euthydemus
- Cratylus
- Phaedrus
- Ion
- Symposium
- Meno
- Euthyphro
- Apology
- Crito
- Phaedo
- Gorgias
- The Republic
- Timaeus
- Critias
- Parmenides
- Theaetetus
- Sophist
- Statesman
- Philebus
- Laws
- The Seventh Letter (translated by J. Harward)
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)
- Metaphysiscs (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)
- The Athenian Constitution (Sir Frederic G. Kenyon)
- Rhetoric (W. Rhys Roberts)
- On Poetics (Ingram Bywater)
Hippocrates
Hippocratic Writings (Francis Adams)
- On Airs, Waters, And Places
- Aphorisms
- On The Articulations
- Of The Epidemics
- On Fistulae
- On Fractures
- On Injuries Of The Head
- On Hemorrhoids
- The Law
- On Ancient Medicine
- The Oath
- The Book Of Prognostics
- Instruments Of Reduction
- On Regimen In Acute Diseases
- On The Sacred Disease
- On The Surgery
- On Ulcers
Galen
- On the Natural Faculties (Arthur John Brock)
Euclid
- Euclid’s Elements (Sir Thomas L. Heath)
Archimedes
The Works of Archimedes, Including The Method (Sir Thomas L. Heath)
- On the Sphere and Cylinder
- Measurement of a Circle
- On Conoids and Spheroids
- On Spirals
- On the Equilibrium of Planes
- The Sand-Reckoner
- The Quadrature of the Parabola
- On Floating Bodies
- Book of Lemmas
- The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems
Apollonius of Perga
- Treatise on Conic Sections
Nicomachus of Gerasa
- The Introduction to Arithmetic of Nicomachus (Martin L. D’Ooge)
Ancient Rome
Lucretius
- The Way Things Are (Rolfe Humphries)
Marcus Aurelius
- Meditations (George Long)
Plotinus
- The Six Enneads (Stephen MacKenna and B.S. Page)
Virgil
- Eclogues (C. Day Lewis)
- 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)
Late Medieval Period (to 1450)
Thomas Aquinas
- Summa Theologica (Father Laurence Shapcote)
Dante
- The Divine Comedy (Charles S. Singleton)
The Renaissance
Geoffrey Chaucer
- Troilus and Criseyde (Nevill Coghill)
- The Canterbury Tales (Nevill Coghill)
John Calvin
- Institutes of the Christian Religion (Henry Beveridge)
Nicolò Machiavelli
- The Prince (W.K. Marriott)
François Rabelais
- Gargantua and Pantagruel (Sir Thomas Urquhart and Peter Motteux)
Desiderius Erasmus
- Praise of Folly (Betty Radice)
William Shakespeare
- The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
- The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
- The Third part of King Henry the Sixth
- The Life and Death of Richard the Third
- The Comedy of errors
- Titus Andronicus
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Love’s Labour ‘s Lost
- Romeo and Juliet
- The Life and Death of Richard the Second
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- The Life and Death of King John
- The Merchant of Venice
- The first part of King Henry the Fourth
- The second part of King Henry the Fourth
- Much Ado About Nothing
- The Life of King Henry the Fifth
- The Life and Death of Julius Ceasar
- As you like it
- Twelfth Night; or, what you will
- The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The History of Troilus and Cressida
- All’s Well that Ends Well
- Measure for Measure
- Othello, the Moore of Venice
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Antony and Cleopatra
- The Tragedy of Coriolanus
- The Life of Timon of Athens
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- Cymbeline
- The Winter’s Tale
- The Tempest
- The Life of King Henry the Eighth
- The Sonnets
William Gilbert
- On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies (P. Fleury Mottelay)
Galileo Galilei
- Concerning the Two New Sciences (Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio)
William Harvey
- On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals (Robert Willis)
- On the Circulation of the Blood (Robert Willis)
- On the Generation of Animals (Robert Willis)
Miguel de Cervantes
- The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha (Samuel Putnam)
Seventeenth Century
Francis Bacon
- Advancement of Learning
- Novum Organum
- 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)
- The Geometry (David Eugene Smith, and Marcia L. Latham)
John Milton
- English Minor Poems
- Paradise Lost
- Samson Agonistes
- Areopagitica
Blaise Pascal
- 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 Philosophy (Andrew Mott)
- Optics
Christiaan Huygens
- Treatise on Light (Silvanus P. Thompson)
John Locke
- A Letter Concerning Toleration (William Popple)
- Second Essay on Civil Government
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Eighteenth Century
George Berkeley
- The Principles of Human Knowledge
David Hume
- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Denis Diderot
- Rameau’s Nephew (Jacques Brazu)
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
- The Spirit of Laws (Thomas Nugent)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (G.D.H. Cole)
- A Discourse on Political Economy (G.D.H. Cole)
- The Social Contract (G.D.H. Cole)
Adam Smith
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Edward Gibbon
- The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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
- Articles of Confederation
- The Constitution
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
Nineteenth Century
John Stuart Mill
*On Liberty *Representative Government *Utilitarianism
James Boswell
- The Life of Samuel Johnson
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
- Elements of Chemistry (Robert Kerr)
Michael Faraday
- Experimental Researches in Electricity
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- The Philosophy of Right (T.M. Knox)
- The Philosophy of History (J. Sibree)
Søren Kierkegaard
- Fear and Trembling (Walter Lowrie)
Friedrich Nietzsche
- Beyond Good and Evil (Walter Lowrie)
Alexis de Tocqueville
- Democracy in America (George Lawrence)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Honoré de Balzac
- Cousin Bette (Marion Ayton Crawford)
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
- The Principles of Psychology
Twentieth Century
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 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
Henri Bergson
- An Introduction to Metaphysics (T.E. Hulme)
Alfred North Whitehead (also see below)
- Science and the Modern World
Bertrand Russell
- The Problems of Philosophy
Martin Heidegger
- What Is Metaphysics? (R.F.C. Hull and Alan Crick)
Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Philosophical Investigations (G.E.M. Anscombe)
Karl Barth
- The Word of God and the Word of Man (Douglas Horton)
Natural Science
Henri Poincaré
- Science and Hypothesis (William John Greenstreet)
Max Plank
- Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (Frank Gaynor)
Alfred North Whitehead (also see above)
- An Introduction to Mathematics
Albert Einstein
- Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (Robert W. Lawson)
Niels Bohr
- Selections from Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature
- Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics
G. H. Hardy
- A Mathematician’s Apology
Theodosius Dobzhansky
- Genetics and the Origin of Species
Social Science
Thorstein Veblen
- The Theory of the Leisure Class
John Maynard Keynes
- The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
James George Frazer
- Selections from The Golden Bough
Max Weber
- Selections from Essays in Sociology (H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills)
Johan Huizinga
- The Waning of the Middle Ages (Frederik Jan Hopman)
Claude Lévi-Strauss
- Selections from Structural Anthropology, (Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf)
Imaginative Literature
Anton Chekhov
- Uncle Vania (Elisaveta Fen)
Luigi Pirandello
- Six Characters in Search of an Author (Edward Storer)
Marcel Proust
- Swann in Love (from Remembrance of Things Past) (C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin)
Thomas Mann
- Death in Venice (H.T. Lowe-Porter)
James Joyce
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Franz Kafka
- The Metamorphosis (Willa Muir and Edwin Muir)
Bertolt Brecht
- Mother Courage and Her Children (Ralph Manheim)
Ernest Hemingway
- The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
Gateway to the Great Books
- A Letter to the Reader
- Introduction
Imaginative Literature
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)
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)
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)
Samuel BUTLER (1835-1902)
- “Customs and Opinions of the Erewhonians” from Erewhon
Sherwood ANDERSON (1876-1941)
ANONYMOUS (c. early 13th Century)
Stephen CRANE (1871-1900)
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
Lucius APULEIUS (fl. 2nd Century)
- “Cupid and Psyche” from The Golden Ass
Ivan TURGENEV (1818-1883)
Fyodor DOSTOEVSKY (1828-1910)
John GALSWORTHY (1867-1933)
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)
Isaac SINGER (b. 1904)
- “The Spinoza of Market Street”
Alexander PUSHKIN (1799-1837)
D. H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930)
- “The Rocking-Horse Winner” from The Lovely Lady
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)
Anton CHEKHOV (1860-1904)
George Bernard SHAW (1856-1950)
John M. SYNGE (1871-1909)
Eugene O’NEILL (1888-1953)
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)
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)
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.)
Man and Society
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)
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
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)
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
Natural Science
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)
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
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)
Philosophical Essays
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”
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
Appendix III Recommended Anthologies of Poetry
|
Revision: 34
Title: Reading Check Lists for Major Series: Great Books of the Western World
Author: MJ. Smith
Date: 2016 Jun 11 at 03:00
Reading Check Lists for Major Series: Great Books of the Western World
Reading List
Great Books of the Western World
These books are listed in the sequence they appear in the series; links will be added when available. The idea is simply for one to be able to check off a book as read rather than to supply dates or sequence. In some cases the original language addition or alternative translations may also be given.
Ancient Greece
Herodotus
- The History (George Rawlinson)
Thucydides
- The History of the Peloponnesian War (Richard Rawley)
Plato
The Dialogues (translated by Benjamin Jowett)
- Charmides
- Lysis
- Laches
- Protagoras
- Euthydemus
- Cratylus
- Phaedrus
- Ion
- Symposium
- Meno
- Euthyphro
- Apology
- Crito
- Phaedo
- Gorgias
- The Republic
- Timaeus
- Critias
- Parmenides
- Theaetetus
- Sophist
- Statesman
- Philebus
- Laws
- The Seventh Letter (translated by J. Harward)
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)
- Metaphysiscs (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)
- The Athenian Constitution (Sir Frederic G. Kenyon)
- Rhetoric (W. Rhys Roberts)
- On Poetics (Ingram Bywater)
Hippocrates
Hippocratic Writings (Francis Adams)
- On Airs, Waters, And Places
- Aphorisms
- On The Articulations
- Of The Epidemics
- On Fistulae
- On Fractures
- On Injuries Of The Head
- On Hemorrhoids
- The Law
- On Ancient Medicine
- The Oath
- The Book Of Prognostics
- Instruments Of Reduction
- On Regimen In Acute Diseases
- On The Sacred Disease
- On The Surgery
- On Ulcers
Galen
- On the Natural Faculties (Arthur John Brock)
Euclid
- Euclid’s Elements (Sir Thomas L. Heath)
Archimedes
The Works of Archimedes, Including The Method (Sir Thomas L. Heath)
- On the Sphere and Cylinder
- Measurement of a Circle
- On Conoids and Spheroids
- On Spirals
- On the Equilibrium of Planes
- The Sand-Reckoner
- The Quadrature of the Parabola
- On Floating Bodies
- Book of Lemmas
- The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems
Apollonius of Perga
- Treatise on Conic Sections
Nicomachus of Gerasa
- The Introduction to Arithmetic of Nicomachus (Martin L. D’Ooge)
Ancient Rome
Lucretius
- The Way Things Are (Rolfe Humphries)
Marcus Aurelius
- Meditations (George Long)
Plotinus
- The Six Enneads (Stephen MacKenna and B.S. Page)
Virgil
- Eclogues (C. Day Lewis)
- 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)
Late Medieval Period (to 1450)
Thomas Aquinas
- Summa Theologica (Father Laurence Shapcote)
Dante
- The Divine Comedy (Charles S. Singleton)
The Renaissance
Geoffrey Chaucer
- Troilus and Criseyde (Nevill Coghill)
- The Canterbury Tales (Nevill Coghill)
John Calvin
- Institutes of the Christian Religion (Henry Beveridge)
Nicolò Machiavelli
- The Prince (W.K. Marriott)
François Rabelais
- Gargantua and Pantagruel (Sir Thomas Urquhart and Peter Motteux)
Desiderius Erasmus
- Praise of Folly (Betty Radice)
William Shakespeare
- The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
- The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
- The Third part of King Henry the Sixth
- The Life and Death of Richard the Third
- The Comedy of errors
- Titus Andronicus
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Love’s Labour ‘s Lost
- Romeo and Juliet
- The Life and Death of Richard the Second
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- The Life and Death of King John
- The Merchant of Venice
- The first part of King Henry the Fourth
- The second part of King Henry the Fourth
- Much Ado About Nothing
- The Life of King Henry the Fifth
- The Life and Death of Julius Ceasar
- As you like it
- Twelfth Night; or, what you will
- The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The History of Troilus and Cressida
- All’s Well that Ends Well
- Measure for Measure
- Othello, the Moore of Venice
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Antony and Cleopatra
- The Tragedy of Coriolanus
- The Life of Timon of Athens
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- Cymbeline
- The Winter’s Tale
- The Tempest
- The Life of King Henry the Eighth
- The Sonnets
William Gilbert
- On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies (P. Fleury Mottelay)
Galileo Galilei
- Concerning the Two New Sciences (Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio)
William Harvey
- On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals (Robert Willis)
- On the Circulation of the Blood (Robert Willis)
- On the Generation of Animals (Robert Willis)
Miguel de Cervantes
- The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha (Samuel Putnam)
Seventeenth Century
Francis Bacon
- Advancement of Learning
- Novum Organum
- 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)
- The Geometry (David Eugene Smith, and Marcia L. Latham)
John Milton
- English Minor Poems
- Paradise Lost
- Samson Agonistes
- Areopagitica
Blaise Pascal
- 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 Philosophy (Andrew Mott)
- Optics
Christiaan Huygens
- Treatise on Light (Silvanus P. Thompson)
John Locke
- A Letter Concerning Toleration (William Popple)
- Second Essay on Civil Government
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Eighteenth Century
George Berkeley
- The Principles of Human Knowledge
David Hume
- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Denis Diderot
- Rameau’s Nephew (Jacques Brazu)
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
- The Spirit of Laws (Thomas Nugent)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (G.D.H. Cole)
- A Discourse on Political Economy (G.D.H. Cole)
- The Social Contract (G.D.H. Cole)
Adam Smith
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Edward Gibbon
- The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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
- Articles of Confederation
- The Constitution
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
Nineteenth Century
John Stuart Mill
*On Liberty *Representative Government *Utilitarianism
James Boswell
- The Life of Samuel Johnson
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
- Elements of Chemistry (Robert Kerr)
Michael Faraday
- Experimental Researches in Electricity
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- The Philosophy of Right (T.M. Knox)
- The Philosophy of History (J. Sibree)
Søren Kierkegaard
- Fear and Trembling (Walter Lowrie)
Friedrich Nietzsche
- Beyond Good and Evil (Walter Lowrie)
Alexis de Tocqueville
- Democracy in America (George Lawrence)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Honoré de Balzac
- Cousin Bette (Marion Ayton Crawford)
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
- The Principles of Psychology
Twentieth Century
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 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
Henri Bergson
- An Introduction to Metaphysics (T.E. Hulme)
Alfred North Whitehead (also see below)
- Science and the Modern World
Bertrand Russell
- The Problems of Philosophy
Martin Heidegger
- What Is Metaphysics? (R.F.C. Hull and Alan Crick)
Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Philosophical Investigations (G.E.M. Anscombe)
Karl Barth
- The Word of God and the Word of Man (Douglas Horton)
Natural Science
Henri Poincaré
- Science and Hypothesis (William John Greenstreet)
Max Plank
- Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (Frank Gaynor)
Alfred North Whitehead (also see above)
- An Introduction to Mathematics
Albert Einstein
- Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (Robert W. Lawson)
Niels Bohr
- Selections from Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature
- Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics
G. H. Hardy
- A Mathematician’s Apology
Theodosius Dobzhansky
- Genetics and the Origin of Species
Social Science
Thorstein Veblen
- The Theory of the Leisure Class
John Maynard Keynes
- The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
James George Frazer
- Selections from The Golden Bough
Max Weber
- Selections from Essays in Sociology (H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills)
Johan Huizinga
- The Waning of the Middle Ages (Frederik Jan Hopman)
Claude Lévi-Strauss
- Selections from Structural Anthropology, (Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf)
Imaginative Literature
Anton Chekhov
- Uncle Vania (Elisaveta Fen)
Luigi Pirandello
- Six Characters in Search of an Author (Edward Storer)
Marcel Proust
- Swann in Love (from Remembrance of Things Past) (C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin)
Thomas Mann
- Death in Venice (H.T. Lowe-Porter)
James Joyce
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Franz Kafka
- The Metamorphosis (Willa Muir and Edwin Muir)
Bertolt Brecht
- Mother Courage and Her Children (Ralph Manheim)
Ernest Hemingway
- The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
Gateway to the Great Books
Gateway to the Great Books is a 10-volume series of books designed as an introduction to the Great Books of the Western World, published by the same organization and editors in 1952. The set included selections – short stories, plays, essays, letters, and extracts from longer works – by more than one hundred authors. The selections were generally shorter and in some ways simpler than the full-length books included in the Great Books. - A Letter to the Reader
- Introduction
Imaginative Literature
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)
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)
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)
Samuel BUTLER (1835-1902)
- “Customs and Opinions of the Erewhonians” from Erewhon
Sherwood ANDERSON (1876-1941)
ANONYMOUS (c. early 13th Century)
Stephen CRANE (1871-1900)
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
Lucius APULEIUS (fl. 2nd Century)
- “Cupid and Psyche” from The Golden Ass
Ivan TURGENEV (1818-1883)
Fyodor DOSTOEVSKY (1828-1910)
John GALSWORTHY (1867-1933)
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)
Isaac SINGER (b. 1904)
- “The Spinoza of Market Street”
Alexander PUSHKIN (1799-1837)
D. H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930)
- “The Rocking-Horse Winner” from The Lovely Lady
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)
Anton CHEKHOV (1860-1904)
George Bernard SHAW (1856-1950)
John M. SYNGE (1871-1909)
Eugene O’NEILL (1888-1953)
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)
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)
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.)
Man and Society
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)
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
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)
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
Natural Science
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)
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
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)
Philosophical Essays
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”
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
Appendix III Recommended Anthologies of Poetry
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