Note
I got to know about this book series when I read How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler. I didn’t pay much attention to actually reading the book series until a few years later when RV told me that he loved Adler’s book and purchased the book set.
I got my copy of the books from a listing on Craigslist. The seller was a doctor who had purchased the books from a library sale many years ago and had even read some of the classics in Latin when he was younger.
References
- My Newsletter - A Bibliophile’s Odyssey: Reading The Great Books
- Internet Archive has pdf/text/epub versions to download. Link.
- List of Books - https://robinsonraju.blog/rr-static-sites/great-books/western-world/index.html
- HTML summaries (of Books I’ve read so far) - https://robinsonraju.blog/rr-static-sites/great-books/book-summaries/index.html
List of Books - Great Books of the Western World (1952 Edition)
| Volume | Authors / Contents | Approximate Year(s) Written/Published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Great Conversation | 1952 |
| 2 | The Great Ideas: Syntopicon I (Angel to Love) | 1952 |
| 3 | The Great Ideas: Syntopicon II (Man to World) | 1952 |
| 4 | Homer: The Iliad, The Odyssey | c. 8th Century B.C. |
| 5 | Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes: 62 Plays | 5th–4th Century B.C. |
| 6 | Herodotus: The History; Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War | 5th Century B.C. |
| 7 | Plato: The Dialogues (24 dialogues + The Seventh Letter) | 4th Century B.C. |
| 8 | Aristotle I: Logic, Physics, Metaphysics, On the Soul, Short Physical Treatises | 4th Century B.C. |
| 9 | Aristotle II: Biology, Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, Poetics | 4th Century B.C. |
| 10 | Hippocrates: Medical Treatises; Galen: On the Natural Faculties | c. 400 B.C. / 2nd Century A.D. |
| 11 | Euclid: Elements; Archimedes: Works; Apollonius: Conic Sections; Nicomachus | 3rd Century B.C. – 100 A.D. |
| 12 | Lucretius: On the Nature of Things; Epictetus: Discourses; Marcus Aurelius: Meditations | 1st Century B.C. – 2nd Century A.D. |
| 13 | Virgil: Eclogues, Georgics, The Aeneid | 1st Century B.C. |
| 14 | Plutarch: Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans | 1st–2nd Century A.D. |
| 15 | Tacitus: The Annals, The Histories | c. 100–117 A.D. |
| 16 | Ptolemy: Almagest; Copernicus: On the Revolutions; Kepler: Astronomy, Harmonies | 150 A.D. / 1543 / 1618 |
| 17 | Plotinus: The Six Enneads | 3rd Century A.D. |
| 18 | Augustine: Confessions, City of God, On Christian Doctrine | c. 397–426 A.D. |
| 19 | Thomas Aquinas I: Summa Theologica (Part 1, QQ 1–119) | 1265–1274 |
| 20 | Thomas Aquinas II: Summa Theologica (Parts I-II, II-II, III & Supplement) | 1265–1274 |
| 21 | Dante: The Divine Comedy | c. 1308–1320 |
| 22 | Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde, The Canterbury Tales | c. 1380–1400 |
| 23 | Machiavelli: The Prince; Hobbes: Leviathan | 1513 / 1651 |
| 24 | Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel | 1532–1564 |
| 25 | Montaigne: Essays (Complete) | 1580 |
| 26 | Shakespeare I: History Plays, Comedies, Early Tragedies | 1590–1600 |
| 27 | Shakespeare II: Later Tragedies, Romances, Sonnets | 1601–1613 |
| 28 | Gilbert: On the Loadstone; Galileo: Two New Sciences; Harvey: Circulation Works | 1600 / 1638 / 1628 |
| 29 | Cervantes: Don Quixote de la Mancha | 1605 / 1615 |
| 30 | Francis Bacon: Advancement of Learning, Novum Organum, New Atlantis | 1605 / 1620 / 1626 |
| 31 | Descartes: Meditation, Method, Geometry; Spinoza: Ethics | 1637–1641 / 1677 |
| 32 | Milton: Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, Areopagitica, Minor Poems | 1644–1671 |
| 33 | Pascal: Provincial Letters, Pensées, Scientific Treatises | c. 1653–1662 |
| 34 | Newton: Mathematical Principles, Optics; Huygens: Treatise on Light | 1687 / 1704 / 1690 |
| 35 | Locke: Toleration, Civil Government; Berkeley: Human Knowledge; Hume: Enquiry | 1689–1690 / 1710 / 1748 |
| 36 | Swift: Gulliver’s Travels; Sterne: Tristram Shandy | 1726 / 1759 |
| 37 | Fielding: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling | 1749 |
| 38 | Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws; Rousseau: Inequality, Economy, Social Contract | 1748 / 1754–1762 |
| 39 | Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations | 1776 |
| 40 | Edward Gibbon I: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Ch. 1–40) | 1776–1781 |
| 41 | Edward Gibbon II: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Ch. 41–71) | 1788 |
| 42 | Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, Practical Reason, Judgement, Metaphysic of Morals | 1781–1797 |
| 43 | American State Papers: Dec. of Independence, Articles of Confed., U.S. Constitution; The Federalist; J.S. Mill: On Liberty, Rep. Government, Utilitarianism | 1776–1788 / 1859–1861 |
| 44 | James Boswell: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. | 1791 |
| 45 | Lavoisier: Chemistry; Fourier: Theory of Heat; Faraday: Electricity | 1789 / 1822 / 1839–1855 |
| 46 | Hegel: The Philosophy of Right, The Philosophy of History | 1821 / 1837 |
| 47 | Goethe: Faust | 1808 / 1832 |
| 48 | Melville: Moby Dick; or, The Whale | 1851 |
| 49 | Darwin: Origin of Species, The Descent of Man | 1859 / 1871 |
| 50 | Marx: Capital; Marx & Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party | 1867 / 1848 |
| 51 | Tolstoy: War and Peace | 1869 |
| 52 | Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov | 1880 |
| 53 | William James: The Principles of Psychology | 1890 |
| 54 | Sigmund Freud: Collected Papers, Interpretation of Dreams, General Introduction | 1893–1933 |
Reading Plans
10-year reading plan as per The Great Conversation: Ten-Year Reading Plan Great Books of the Western World
My Reading Plans (based on roughly 2-pages per day) * GB Volume 4 - Reading Plan * GB Volume 5 - Reading Plan *