![]() ![]() Within the limits of fifty volumes, containing about twenty-three thousand pages, my task was to provide the means of obtaining such knowledge of ancient and modern literature as seemed essential to the twentieth-century idea of a cultivated man. The purpose of The Harvard Classics is, therefore, one different from that of collections in which the editor’s aim has been to select a number of best books it is nothing less than the purpose to present so ample and characteristic a record of the stream of the world’s thought that the observant reader’s mind shall be enriched, refined and fertilized. ![]() My aim was not to select the best fifty, or best hundred, books in the world, but to give, in twenty-three thousand pages or thereabouts, a picture of the progress of the human race within historical times, so far as that progress can be depicted in books. The pamphlet, entitled Fifteen Minutes a Day – A Reading Plan, is a 64-page booklet that describes the benefits of reading, gives the background on the book series, and includes many statements by Eliot about why he undertook the project. including Collier’s and McClure’s and offered to send a pamphlet to prospective buyers (and to get leads for its salesmen). Collier advertised The Harvard Classics in many magazines in the U.S. Buyers of these sets were apparently attracted to the claims that reading the books would provide a liberal education by following the included reading plan and using the General Index containing upwards of 76,000 subject references. The initial marketing success of The Harvard Classics was due, in part, to the branding offered by Eliot and Harvard University. The 50 volumes were first printed in 1909 (first 25 volumes) and 1910 (next 25 volumes), and the collection was subsequently expanded when the Lectures on The Harvard Classics was added in 1914 and Fifteen Minutes a Day – The Reading Guide in 1916.įifteen Minutes a Day – The Reading Guide Eliot believed that a careful reading of the series and by following the included 11 reading plans in Volume 50 would offer a reader, in the comfort of home, the benefits of a liberal education, entertainment and counsel of history’s greatest creative minds. Eliot’s Five-Foot Shelf of Books, is a 50-volume series of classic works from world literature, important speeches, and historical documents compiled and edited by Harvard University President Charles W. The Harvard Classics, originally known and marketed as Dr. ![]()
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