Great Books of the Western World List

1. The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas
   Angel to Love
   
2. The Syntopicon (continued)
   Man to World
   
3. Homer
   Iliad
   Odyssey
   
4. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes
   Aeschylus. Plays
   Sophocles. Plays
   Euripides. Plays
   Aristophanes. Plays
   
5. Herodotus, Thucydides
   Herodotus. History
   Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War
   
6. Plato
   
   Dialogues
   Seventh Letter
   
7. Aristotle (I)
   
   Works
   
8. Aristotle (II)
   
   Works (continued)
   
9. Hippocrates, Galen
   
   Hippocrates. Hippocratic Writings
   Galen. On the Natural Faculties
   
10. Euclid, Archimedes, Nicomachus
    
    Euclid. Elements
    Archimedes. Works (including The Method)
    Nicomachus. Introduction to Arithmetic
    
11. Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus
    
    Lucretius The Way Things Are
    Epictetus. Discourses
    Marcus Aurelius. The Meditations
    Plotinus. The Six Enneads
    
12. Virgil
    
    Eclogues
    Georgics
    Aeneid
    
13. Plutarch
    
    Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
    
14. Tacitus
    
    Annals
    Histories
    
15. Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler
    
    Ptolemy. Almagest
    Copernicus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
    Kepler. Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
    Kepler. The Harmonies of the World
    
16. Augustine
    
    The Confessions
    The City of God
    On Christian Doctrine
    
17. Thomas Aquinas (I)
    
    Summa Theologica
    
18. Thomas Aquinas (II)
    
    Summa Theologica (continued)
    
19. Dante, Chaucer
    
    Dante. Divine Comedy
    Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde
    Chaucer. Canterbury Tales
    
20. Calvin
    
    Institutes of the Christian Religion
    
21. Machiavelli, Hobbes
    
    Machiavelli. The Prince
    Hobbes. Leviathan, or, Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil
    
22. Rabelais
    
    Gargantua and Pantagruel
    
23. Erasmus, Montaigne
    
    Erasmus. Praise of Folly
    Montaigne. Essays
    
24. Shakespeare (I)
    
    The Plays and Sonnets
    
25. Shakespeare (II)
    
    The Plays and Sonnets (continued)
    
26. Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey
    
    Gilbert. On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
    Galileo. Concerning the Two New Sciences
    Harvey. On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
    Harvey. On the Circulation of the Blood
    Harvey. On the Generation of Animals
    
27. Cervantes
    
    The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha
    
28. Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza
    
    Bacon. Advancement of Learning
    Bacon. Novum Organum
    Bacon. New Atlantis
    Descartes. Rules for the Direction of the Mind
    Descartes. Discourse on the Method
    Descartes. Meditations on First Philosophy
    Descartes. Objections Against the Meditations and Replies
    Descartes. The Geometry
    Spinoza. Ethics
    
29. Milton
    
    English minor poems
    Paradise Lost
    Samson Agonistes
    Areopagitica
    
30. Pascal
    
    The Provincial Letters
    Pensees
    Scientific Treatises
    
31. Moliere, Racine
    
    Moliere. The School for Wives
    Moliere. The Critique of the School for Wives
    Moliere. Tartuffe
    Moliere. Don Juan
    Moliere. The Miser
    Moliere. The Would-Be Gentleman
    Moliere. The Would-Be Invalid
    Racine. Berenice
    
32. Newton, Huygens
    
    Newton. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
    Newton. Optics
    Huygens. Treatise on Light
    
33. Locke, Berkeley
    
    Locke. A Letter Concerning Toleration
    Locke. Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay
    Locke. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
    Berkeley. The Principles of Human Knowledge
    Hume. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
    
34. Swift, Voltaire, Diderot
    
    Swift. Gulliver's Travels
    Voltaire. Candide
    Diderot. Rameau's Nephew
    
35. Montesquieu, Rousseau
    
    Montesquieu. The Spirit of Laws
    Rousseau. On the Origin of Inequality
    Rousseau. On Political Economy
    Rousseau. The Social Contract
    
36. Smith
    
    An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
    
37. Gibbon (I)
    
    History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    
38. Gibbon (II)
    
    History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (continued)
    
39. Kant
    
    The Critique of Pure Reason
    The Critique of Practical Reason, and Other Ethical Treatises
    The Critique of Judgment
    
40. American State Papers, The Federalist, Mill
    
    Declaration of Independence
    Articles of Confederation
    The Constitution
    Hamilton, Madison, Jay. The Federalist
    Mill. On Liberty
    Mill. Representative Government
    Mill. Utilitarianism
    
41. Boswell
    
    Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.
    
42. Lavoisier, Faraday
    
    Lavoisier. Elements of Chemistry
    Faraday. Experimental Researches in Electricity
    
43. Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche
    
    Hegel. The Philosophy of Right
    Hegel. The Philosophy of History
    Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling
    Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil
    
44. Tocqueville
    
    Democracy in America
    
45. Goethe, Balzac
    
    Goethe. Faust: Parts One and Two
    Balzac. Cousin Bette
    
46. Austen, Eliot
    
    Austen. Emma
    Eliot. Middlemarch
    
47. Dickens
    
    Little Dorrit
    
48. Melville, Twain
    
    Melville. Moby Dick, or, The Whale
    Twain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    
49. Darwin
    
    The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
    The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
    
50. Marx, Engels
    
    Marx (edited by Engels). Capital
    Marx and Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party
    
51. Tolstoy
    
    War and Peace
    
52. Dostoyevsky, Ibsen
    
    Dostoyevsky. The Brothers Karamazov
    Ibsen. A Doll's House
    Ibsen. The Wild Duck
    Ibsen. Hedda Gabler
    Ibsen. The Master Builder
    
53. James
    
    The Principles of Psychology
    
54. Freud
    
    The Major Works of Sigmund Freud
    
55. 20th Century Philosophy and Religion
    
    James. Pragmatism
    Bergson. An Introduction to Metaphysics
    Dewey. Experience and Education
    Whitehead. Science and the Modern World
    Russell. The Problems of Philosophy
    Heidegger. What is Metaphysics?
    Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations
    Barth. The Word of God and the Word of Man
    
56. 20th Century Natural Science
    
    Poincare. Science and Hypothesis
    Planck. Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers
    Whitehead. An Introduction to Mathematics
    Einstein. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
    Eddington. The Expanding Universe
    Bohr. Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (selections)
    Bohr. Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problemns in Atomic Physics
    Hardy. A Mathematician's Apology
    Heisenberg. Physics and Philosophy
    Schrodinger. What is Life?
    Dobzhansky. Genetics and the Origin of Species
    Waddington. The Nature of Life
    
57. 20th Century Social Science (I)
    
    Veblen. The Theory of the Leisure Class
    Tawney. The Acquisitive Society
    Keynes. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
    
58. 20th Century Social Science (II)
    
    Frazer. The Golden Bough (selections)
    Weber. Essays in Sociology (selections)
    Huizinga. The Waning of the Middle Ages
    Levi-Strauss. Structural Anthropology (selections)
    
59. 20th Century Imaginative Literature (I)
    
    James. The Beast in the Jungle
    Shaw. Saint Joan
    Conrad. Heart of Darkness
    Chekhov. Uncle Vanya
    Pirandello. Six Characters in Search of an Author
    Proust. Remembrance of Things Past. "Swann in Love"
    Cather. A Lost Lady
    Mann. Death in Venice
    Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    
60. 20th Century Imaginative Literature (II)
    
    Woolf. To the Lighthouse
    Kafka. Metamorphosis
    Lawrence. The Prussian Officer
    Eliot. The Waste Land
    O'Neill. Mourning Becomes Electra
    Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby
    Faulkner. A Rose for Emily
    Brecht. Mother Courage and Her Children
    Hemingway. The Short Happy Life of Macomber
    Orwell. Animal Farm
    Beckett. Waiting for Godot
    

The Reading List That Started My Collection

What to Read(From How to Prepare for College, by Abraham H. Lass)

Freshman YearBulfinch, Thomas--The Age of Fables
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne (Mark Twain)--The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,  The Prince and the Pauper
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor--“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Conrad, Joseph--Typhoon
Cooper, James Fenimore--The Last of the Mohicans
Day, Clarence--Life with Father
Defoe, Daniel--Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles--Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan--The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Dumas, Alexander--The Three Muskateers
Heyerdahl, Thor--Kon-tiki
Hilton, James--Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Keller, Helen--The Story of My Life
Kipling, Rudyard--Captains Courageous
de Kruif, Paul--Microbe Hunters
London, Jack--The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf
Nordhoff and Hall--Mutiny on the Bounty
O’Hara, Mary--My Friend Flicka
Poe, Edgar Allan--Poems, Tales
Porter, W. S. (O’Henry)--Short Stories
Sandburg, Carl--Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Scott, Sir Walter--Ivanhoe
Shakespeare, William--Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Midsummer Night’s Dream
Steinbeck, John--The Red Pony and other stories
Stevenson, Robert Louis--Treasure Island, Kidnapped
Swift, Jonathan--Gulliver’s Travels
Tarkington, Booth--Penrod, Penrod and Sam
Van Loon, Henderick William--The Story of Mankind
Verne, Jules--Around the World in Eighty Days,  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Washington, Booker T.--Up from Slavery
Wells, H. G.--The Time Machine,  The War of the Worlds

Sophomore Year

Balzac, Honore de—The Human Comedy

Barrie, James--The Admirable Crichton, What Every Woman Knows
Beebe, William--Jungle Peace
Bronte, Charlotte--Jane Eyre
Buck, Pearl S.--The Good Earth
Carroll, Lewis--Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne (Mark Twain)--The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Crane, Stephen--The Red Badge of Courage
Dickens, Charles--Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Tale of Two Cities
Dumas, Alexander--The Count of Monte Cristo
Mary Ann Evans (Eliot, George)--Silas Marner
Fabre, Jean-Henri--Social Life in the Insect World

Frank, Ann—The Diary of a Young Girl

Goldsmith, Oliver—The Vicar of Wakefield
Grahame, Kenneth--The Wind in the Willows
Homer--The Odyssey
Hudson, W.H.--Green Mansions
Hugo, Victor--Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Irving, Washingto-- The Sketch Book
Leacock, Stephen--The Best of Stephen Leacock
De Maupassant, Guy--Short Stories
Morley, Victory--The Haunted Bookshop, Parnassus on Wheels, Verse
Nash, Ogden--Poems
Remarque, Eric M.--All Quiet on the Western Front
Shakespeare, William--The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night
Shaw, George Bernard--Pygmalion

Junior YearAusten, Jane--Pride and Prejudice
Balzac, Honore de--Pere Goriot
Bellamy, Edward--Looking Backward
Benet, Stephen Vincent--John Brown’s Body
Bronte, Emily--Wuthering Heights
Bunyan, John--Pilgrim’s Progress
Burke, Edmund--Reflections on the Revolution in France
Carson, Rachel--The Sea Around Us
Cather, Willa--My Antonia
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Cervantes, Miguel de--Don Quixote
Conrad, Joseph--Lord Jim
Curie, Eve--Madame Curie
Franklin, Benjamin--Autobiography
Galsworthy, John--The Forsyth Saga
Goldsmith, Oliver--She Stoops to Conquer
Hawthorne, Nathaniel--The House of Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter
Hershey, John--Hiroshima
Housman, A.E.--A Shropshire Lad
Kipling, Rudyard--Poems
Lamb, Charles--The Essays of Elia
Lewis, Sinclair--Babbit, Arrowsmith
Ludwig, Emil--Napoleon
Maeterlinck, Maurice--The Life of the Bee
Masters, Edgar Lee--Spoon River Anthology
Munro, H. H.--Short Stories of “Saki”
O’Neill, Eugene--Ah, Wilderness, The Emperor Jones
Orwell, George--Animal Farm, 1984
Paine, Thomas--The Rights of Man
Palgrave, Francis--The Golden Treasury
Plutarch--The Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
Robinson, James--The Mind in the Making
Rolviag, O.E.--Giants in the Earth
Rostand, Edmond--Cyrano de Bergerac
Saint-Exupery, Antoine de--Wind, Sand and Stars
Sandberg, Carl--The People, Yes
Shakespeare, William--Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth, Othello, Richard III
Shaw, George Bernard--Arms and the Man
Sheridan, Richard B.--The Rivals
Steffens, Lincoln--Autobiography
Strachey, Lytton--Eminent Victorians
Thurber, James--A Thurber Carnival
Untermeyer, Louis, Editor--Modern American Poetry, Modern British Poetry
Wharton, Edith--Ethan Frome
Wilde, Oscar--The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Importance of Being Earnest
Wilder, Thornton--Our Town, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Senior YearAeschylus--Plays
Bennett, Arnold--The Old Wives’ Tale
Butler, Samuel--Erewhon, The Way of All Flesh
Chekov, Anton--The Cherry Orchard, Short Stories
Dickens, Charles--The Pickwick Papers
Dostoyevski, Fyodor--Crime and Punishment
Durant, Will--The Story of Philosophy
Emerson, Ralph Waldo--Essays
Euripides--Plays
Flaubert, Gustave--Madame Bovary
Hamilton, Edith--Mythology
Hardy, Thomas--The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure
Homer--The Illiad
Ibsen, Henrik--A Doll’s House, An Enemy of the People
James, Henry--The Turn of the Screw, Portrait of a Lady
Khayam, Omar--The Rubiyat
Lewis, Sinclair--Main Street
Mann, Thomas--Buddenbrooks
Marquand, John P.--The Late George Appley
Maugham, Somerset--Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence
Miller, Arthur--The Death of a Salesman
Melville, Herman--Moby Dick
Plato--The Dialogues
Rolland, Romain--Jean-Christophe
Shakespeare, Willam--Hamlet, Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2), The Sonnets
Shaw, George Bernard--Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman
Sophocles--Plays
Synge, J. M.--Playboy of the Western World
Thackeray, Willam M.--Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David--Walden
Tolstoy, Leo--Anna Karenina, War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan--Fathers and Sons
Whitman, Walt--Leaves of Grass
Wolfe, Thomas--Look Homeward, Angel

Harvard Classics Book List

The Harvard Classics
VOL. I.
His Autobiography, by Benjamin Franklin
Journal, by John Woolman
Fruits of Solitude, by William Penn
II.
The Apology, Phædo and Crito of Plato
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
III.
Essays, Civil and Moral & The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon
Areopagitica & Tractate on Education, by John Milton
Religio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne
IV.
Complete Poems Written in English, by John Milton
V.
Essays and English Traits, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
VI.
Poems and Songs, by Robert Burns
VII.
The Confessions of Saint Augustine
The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis
VIII.
Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers, The Furies & Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus
Oedipus the King & Antigone of Sophocles
Hippolytus & The Bacchæ of Euripides
The Frogs of Aristophanes
IX.
On Friendship, On Old Age & Letters, by Cicero
Letters, by Pliny the Younger
X.
Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
XI.
The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
XII.
Lives, by Plutarch
XIII.
Æneid, by Vergil
XIV.
Don Quixote, Part 1, by Cervantes
XV.
The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
The Lives of Donne and Herbert, by Izaak Walton
XVI.
Stories from the Thousand and One Nights
XVII.
Fables, by Æsop Household Tales, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Tales, by Hans Christian Andersen
XVIII.
All for Love, by John Dryden
The School for Scandal, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
She Stoops to Conquer, by Oliver Goldsmith
The Cenci, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
A Blot in the ’Scutcheon, by Robert Browning
Manfred, by Lord Byron
XIX.
Faust, Part I, Egmont & Hermann and Dorothea, by J.W. von Goethe
Dr. Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe
XX.
The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
XXI.
I Promessi Sposi, by Alessandro Manzoni
XXII.
The Odyssey of Homer
XXIII.
Two Years before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
XXIV.
On Taste, On the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution & A Letter to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke
XXV.
Autobiography & On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
Characteristics, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh & Sir Walter Scott, by Thomas Carlyle
XXVI.
Life Is a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Polyeucte, by Pierre Corneille
Phædra, by Jean Racine
Tartuffe, by Molière
Minna von Barnhelm, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Wilhelm Tell, by Friedrich von Schiller
XXVII.
English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay
XXVIII.
Essays: English and American
XXIX.
The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin
XXX.
Scientific Papers
XXXI.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
XXXII.
Literary and Philosophical Essays
XXXIII.
Voyages and Travels: Ancient and Modern
XXXIV.
Discourse on Method, by René Descartes
Letters on the English, by Voltaire
On the Inequality among Mankind & Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
XXXV.
The Chronicles of Jean Froissart
The Holy Grail, by Sir Thomas Malory
A Description of Elizabethan England, by William Harrison
XXXVI.
The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli
The Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Roper
Utopia, by Sir Thomas More
The Ninety-Five Thesis, Address to the Christian Nobility & Concerning Christian Liberty, by Martin Luther
XXXVII.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education, by John Locke
Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists, by George Berkeley
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume
XXXVIII.
The Oath of Hippocrates
Journeys in Diverse Places, by Ambroise Paré
On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals, by William Harvey
The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against Smallpox, by Edward Jenner
The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, by Oliver Wendell Holmes
On the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery, by Joseph Lister
Scientific Papers, by Louis Pasteur Scientific Papers, by Charles Lyell
XXXIX.
Prefaces and Prologues
XL.
English Poetry I: Chaucer to Gray
XLI.
English Poetry II: Collins to Fitzgerald
XLII.
English Poetry III: Tennyson to Whitman
XLIII.
American Historical Documents: 1000–1904
XLIV.
Confucian: The Sayings of Confucius
Hebrew: Job, Psalms & Ecclesiastes
Christian I: Luke & Acts
XLV.
Christian II: Corinthians I & II & Hymns
Buddhist: Writings
Hindu: The Bhagavad-Gita
Mohammedan: Chapters from the Koran
XLVI.
Edward the Second, by Christopher Marlowe
Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth & The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
XLVII.
The Shoemaker’s Holiday, by Thomas Dekker
The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson
Philaster, by Beaumont and Fletcher
The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster
A New Way to Pay Old Debts, by Philip Massinger
XLVIII.
Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works, by Blaise Pascal
XLIX.
Epic & Saga: Beowulf, The Song of Roland, The Destruction of Dá Derga’s Hostel & The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs
LI.
Lectures on the Harvard Classics