The Harvard Classics: A Free, Digital Collection

Dur­ing his days as Har­vard’s influ­en­tial pres­i­dent, Charles W. Eliot made a fre­quent asser­tion: If you were to spend just 15 min­utes a day read­ing the right books, a quan­ti­ty that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give your­self a prop­er lib­er­al edu­ca­tion. The pub­lish­er P. F. Col­lier and Son loved the idea and asked Eliot to assem­ble the right col­lec­tion of works. The result wasa 51-vol­ume series pub­lished in 1909 called Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf. Lat­er it would sim­ply be called The Har­vard Clas­sics.

You can still buy an old set off of eBay for $399. But, just as eas­i­ly, you can head to the Inter­net Archive and Project Guten­berg, which have cen­tral­ized links to every text includ­ed in The Har­vard Clas­sics (Wealth of Nations, Ori­gin of Species, Plutarch’s Lives, the list goes on below). Please note that the pre­vi­ous two links won’t give you access to the actu­al anno­tat­ed Har­vard Clas­sics texts edit­ed by Eliot him­self. But if you want just that, you can always click here and get dig­i­tal scans of the true Har­vard Clas­sics. Please note that the first two vol­umes appear at the bot­tom of the page. And, in case you want to deep­en your lib­er­al edu­ca­tion yet fur­ther, don’t for­get to check out our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. Also spend some time with these oth­er resources: 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices and 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

A big h/t to @eugenephoto

Texts in the Har­vard Clas­sics col­lec­tion (cour­tesy of Wikipedia):

Vol. 1: FRANKLIN, WOOLMAN, PENN
His Auto­bi­og­ra­phy, by Ben­jamin Franklin
The Jour­nal of John Wool­man, by John Wool­man (1774 and sub­se­quent edi­tions)
Fruits of Soli­tude, by William Penn
Vol. 2. PLATO, EPICTETUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
The Apol­o­gy, Phae­do, and Crito, by Pla­to
The Gold­en Say­ings, by Epicte­tus
The Med­i­ta­tions, by Mar­cus Aure­lius
Vol. 3. BACON, MILTON’S PROSE, THOS. BROWNE
Essays, Civ­il and Moral, and New Atlantis, by Fran­cis Bacon
Are­opagit­i­ca and Trac­tate of Edu­ca­tion, by John Mil­ton
Reli­gio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne
Vol. 4. COMPLETE POEMS IN ENGLISH, MILTON
Com­plete poems writ­ten in Eng­lish, by John Mil­ton
Vol. 5. ESSAYS AND ENGLISH TRAITS, EMERSON
Essays and Eng­lish Traits, by Ralph Wal­do Emer­son
Vol. 6. POEMS AND SONGS, BURNS
Poems and songs, by Robert Burns
Vol. 7. CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, IMITATIONS OF CHRIST
The Con­fes­sions, by Saint Augus­tine
The Imi­ta­tion of Christ, by Thomas á Kem­p­is
Vol. 8. NINE GREEK DRAMAS
Agamem­non, The Liba­tion Bear­ers, The Furies, and Prometheus Bound, by Aeschy­lus
Oedi­pus the King and Antigone, by Sopho­cles
Hip­poly­tus and The Bac­chae, by Euripi­des
The Frogs, by Aristo­phanes
Vol. 9. LETTERS AND TREATISES OF CICERO AND PLINY
On Friend­ship, On Old Age, and let­ters, by Cicero
Let­ters, by Pliny the Younger
Vol. 10. WEALTH OF NATIONS, ADAM SMITH
The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
Vol. 11. ORIGIN OF SPECIES, DARWIN
The Ori­gin of Species, by Charles Dar­win
Vol. 12. PLUTARCH’S LIVES
Lives, by Plutarch
Vol. 13. AENEID, VIRGIL
Aeneid, by Vir­gil
Vol. 14. DON QUIXOTE, PART 1, CERVANTES
Don Quixote, part 1, by Cer­vantes
Vol. 15. PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, DONNE & HERBERT, BUNYAN, WALTON
The Pil­grim’s Progress, by John Bun­yan
The Lives of Donne and Her­bert, by Iza­ak Wal­ton
Vol. 16. THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Sto­ries from the Thou­sand and One Nights
Vol. 17. FOLKLORE AND FABLE, AESOP, GRIMM, ANDERSON
Fables, by Aesop
Chil­dren’s and House­hold Tales, by Jacob and Wil­helm Grimm
Tales, by Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen
Vol. 18. MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA
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
Vol. 19. FAUST, EGMONT, ETC. DOCTOR FAUSTUS, GOETHE, MARLOWE
Faust, part 1, Egmont, and Her­mann and Dorothea, by Johann Wolf­gang von Goethe
Dr. Faus­tus, by Christo­pher Mar­lowe
Vol. 20. THE DIVINE COMEDY, DANTE
The Divine Com­e­dy, by Dante Alighieri
Vol. 21. I PROMESSI SPOSI, MANZONI
I Promes­si Sposi, by Alessan­dro Man­zoni
Vol. 22. THE ODYSSEY, HOMER
The Odyssey, by Homer
Vol. 23. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, DANA
Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Hen­ry Dana, Jr.
Vol. 24. ON THE SUBLIME, FRENCH REVOLUTION, ETC., BURKE
On Taste, On the Sub­lime and Beau­ti­ful, Reflec­tions on the French Rev­o­lu­tion, and A Let­ter to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke
Vol. 25. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, ETC., ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES, J.S. MILL, T. CARLYLE
Auto­bi­og­ra­phy and On Lib­er­ty, by John Stu­art Mill
Char­ac­ter­is­tics, Inau­gur­al Address at Edin­burgh, and Sir Wal­ter Scott, by Thomas Car­lyle
Vol. 26. CONTINENTAL DRAMA
Life is a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Bar­ca
Polyeucte, by Pierre Corneille
Phè­dre, by Jean Racine
Tartuffe, by Molière
Min­na von Barn­helm, by Got­thold Ephraim Less­ing
William Tell, by Friedrich von Schiller
Vol. 27. ENGLISH ESSAYS: SIDNEY TO MACAULAY
Vol. 28. ESSAYS: ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
Vol. 29. VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE, DARWIN
The Voy­age of the Bea­gle, by Charles Dar­win
Vol. 30. FARADAY, HELMHOLTZ, KELVIN, NEWCOMB, ETC
The Forces of Mat­ter and The Chem­i­cal His­to­ry of a Can­dle, by Michael Fara­day
On the Con­ser­va­tion of Force and Ice and Glac­i­ers, by Her­mann von Helmholtz
The Wave The­o­ry of Light and The Tides, by Lord Kelvin
The Extent of the Uni­verse, by Simon New­comb
Geo­graph­i­cal Evo­lu­tion, by Sir Archibald Geikie
Vol. 31. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BENVENUTO CELLINI
The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of Ben­venu­to Celli­ni
Vol. 32. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
Essays, by Michel Eyquem de Mon­taigne
Mon­taigne and What is a Clas­sic?, by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
The Poet­ry of the Celtic Races, by Ernest Renan
The Edu­ca­tion of the Human Race, by Got­thold Ephraim Less­ing
Let­ters upon the Aes­thet­ic Edu­ca­tion of Man, by Friedrich von Schiller
Fun­da­men­tal Prin­ci­ples of the Meta­physic of Morals, by Immanuel Kant
Byron and Goethe, by Giuseppe Mazz­i­ni
Vol. 33. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS
An account of Egypt from The His­to­ries, by Herodotus
Ger­many, by Tac­i­tus
Sir Fran­cis Drake Revived, by Philip Nichols
Sir Fran­cis Drake’s Famous Voy­age Round the World, by Fran­cis Pret­ty
Drake’s Great Arma­da, by Cap­tain Wal­ter Bigges
Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Voy­age to New­found­land, by Edward Haies
The Dis­cov­ery of Guiana, by Sir Wal­ter Raleigh
Vol. 34. FRENCH AND ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS, DESCARTES, VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU, HOBBES
Dis­course on Method, by René Descartes
Let­ters on the Eng­lish, by Voltaire
On the Inequal­i­ty among Mankind and Pro­fes­sion of Faith of a Savo­yard Vic­ar, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
Vol. 35. CHRONICLE AND ROMANCE, FROISSART, MALORY, HOLINSHEAD
Chron­i­cles, by Jean Frois­sart
The Holy Grail, by Sir Thomas Mal­o­ry
A Descrip­tion of Eliz­a­bethan Eng­land, by William Har­ri­son
Vol. 36. MACHIAVELLI, MORE, LUTHER
The Prince, by Nic­colò Machi­avel­li
The Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Rop­er
Utopia, by Sir Thomas More
The Nine­ty-Five The­ses, To the Chris­t­ian Nobil­i­ty of the Ger­man Nation, and On the Free­dom of a Chris­t­ian, by Mar­tin Luther
Vol. 37. LOCKE, BERKELEY, HUME
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
Vol. 38. HARVEY, JENNER, LISTER, PASTEUR
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
Vol. 39. FAMOUS PREFACES
Vol. 40. ENGLISH POETRY 1: CHAUCER TO GRAY
Vol. 41. ENGLISH POETRY 2: COLLINS TO FITZGERALD
Vol. 42. ENGLISH POETRY 3: TENNYSON TO WHITMAN
Vol. 43. AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
Vol. 44. SACRED WRITINGS 1
Con­fu­cian: The say­ings of Con­fu­cius
Hebrew: Job, Psalms, and Eccle­si­astes
Chris­t­ian I: Luke and Acts
Vol. 45. SACRED WRITINGS 2
Chris­t­ian II: Corinthi­ans I and II and hymns
Bud­dhist: Writ­ings
Hin­du: The Bha­gavad-Gita
Mohammedan: Chap­ters from the Koran
Vol. 46. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 1
Edward the Sec­ond, by Christo­pher Mar­lowe
Ham­let, King Lear, Mac­beth, and The Tem­pest, by William Shake­speare
Vol. 47. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 2
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
Vol. 48. THOUGHTS AND MINOR WORKS, PASCAL
Thoughts, let­ters, and minor works, by Blaise Pas­cal
Vol. 49. EPIC AND SAGA
Beowulf
The Song of Roland
The Destruc­tion of Dá Der­ga’s Hos­tel
The Sto­ry of the Vol­sungs and Niblungs
Vol. 50. INTRODUCTION, READER’S GUIDE, INDEXES
Vol. 51. LECTURES
The last vol­ume con­tains six­ty lec­tures intro­duc­ing and sum­ma­riz­ing the cov­ered fields: his­to­ry, poet­ry, nat­ur­al sci­ence, phi­los­o­phy, biog­ra­phy, prose fic­tion, crit­i­cism and the essay, edu­ca­tion, polit­i­cal sci­ence, dra­ma, trav­el­ogues, and reli­gion.