Treasury · Merit

Harvard Classics

The fifty volumes Charles W. Eliot chose in 1909 as a liberal education on a five-foot shelf. Old, Western, and unapologetically canonical.

126 books in the catalog stand on this list. The list itself (opens the list's own website) ↗

A reader aged

98 of these books carry no suggested reading age, so choosing an age leaves them out.

• A Blot in the ’Scutcheon by Robert Browning, 1843
  Remember
• A Description of Elizabethan England by William Harrison, 1577
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• Æneid by Virgil, -19
  also on Mensa Kids, St. John's College
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• A Happy Boy by Björnstjerne Björnson, 1860
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• A House of Gentlefolk & Fathers and Children by Ivan Turgenev, 1917 · Lexile 980L
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• All for Love, or, The World Well Lost by John Dryden, 1678 · ages 13–16
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• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume, 1748 · Lexile 1350L
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• A New Way to Pay Old Debts by Philip Massinger, 1993
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• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 1878 · ages 14–18 · Lexile 1080L · AR 9.6 · AR Interest: UG (9–12)
  also on Mensa Kids
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• Areopagitica & Tractate on Education by John Milton, 1644
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• A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne, 1768
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• Autobiography by Benvenuto Cellini, 1558
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• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin, 1791 · ages 14–18 · Lexile 1370L · AR 11.8 · AR Interest: UG (9–12)
  also on Mensa Kids, TJEd Youth Recommended
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• Autobiography & On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, 2009 · ages 15–18 · Lexile 1440L
  also on TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Buddhist Writings by multiple, 1909
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• Chapters from the Koran by Muslim, 1909
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• Complete Poems Written in English by John Milton, 1640
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• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866 · ages 14–18 · Lexile 900L · AR 8.7 · AR Interest: UG (9–12)
  also on Mensa Kids
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• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, 1850 · ages 12–15 · Lexile 1070L · AR 9.5
  also on Deep Roots Grade, TJEd Youth Recommended
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• Discourse on Method by René Descartes, 1637 · Lexile 1840L
  also on St. John's College, TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Don Quixote, Part 1 by Miguel Cervantes, 1612 · ages 14–18 · Lexile 1410L · AR 13.2 · AR Interest: UG (9–12)
  also on Davidson Gifted, Mensa Kids, St. John's College, TJEd Youth Recommended
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• Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, 1604
  also on Mensa Kids
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• Edward the Second by Christopher Marlowe, 1598
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• English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay by multiple, 1909
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• English Poetry I: Chaucer to Gray by multiple, 1909
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• English Poetry II: Collins to Fitzgerald by multiple, 1909
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• English Poetry III: Tennyson to Whitman by multiple, 1909
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• Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1840
  also on TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Essays, Civil and Moral & The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon, 1600 · ages 14–17
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• Fables by Aesop, -600 · AR 9.7
  also on Deep Roots Grade, TJEd Early Recommended
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• Faust by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 1829 · ages 14–17
  also on St. John's College, TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Five Short Stories by Alphonse Daudet, 1917
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• Frogs by Aristophanes, -405 · Lexile 1290L
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• Fruits of Solitude by William Penn, 1682
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• Gorgias by Plato, -400 · Lexile 1230L
  also on St. John's College
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• Guy Mannering by Sir Walter Scott, 1815
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• Hamlet by William Shakespeare, 1603 · ages 14–18 · Lexile 650L · AR 10.5 · AR Interest: UG (9–12)
  also on Mensa Kids, St. John's College, TJEd Youth Recommended
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• Hippolytus & The Bacchæ by Euripides, -428
  also on St. John's College
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• I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni, 1840 · ages 13–17
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• Ivan the Fool by Leo Tolstoy, 1882 · Lexile 470L
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• Jim Smily and His Jumping Frog by Mark Twain, 1865 · ages 14–17 · Lexile 1000L · AR 6.9
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• Journal by John Woolman, 1774
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• Journeys in Diverse Places by Ambroise Paré, 2005
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• Letters by Pliny the Younger, 109
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• Letters on the English by Voltaire, 1740
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• Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, 1651 · Lexile 1270L
  also on St. John's College, TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Life Is a Dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, 1650
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• Lives by Plutarch, 80 · ages 9–12 · Lexile 1690L
  also on St. John's College, TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Manfred by Lord Byron, 1817
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• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, 180 · Lexile 1240L
  also on TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Meno by Plato, -400
  also on St. John's College
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• Minna von Barnhelm by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, 1767
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• Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, 1831 · Lexile 1080L
  also on Mensa Kids
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• Oedipus the King by Sophocles, -429 · Lexile 1060L
  also on Mensa Kids, St. John's College, TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac, 1834 · Lexile 1180L
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• On Friendship, On Old Age & Letters by Cicero, -44
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• On Taste, On the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution & A Letter to a Noble Lord by Edmund Burke, 1909 · Lexile 1390L
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• On the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery by Joseph Lister, 1860
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• On the Inequality among Mankind & Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar by Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1782 · Lexile 1600L
  also on St. John's College
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• On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals by William Harvey, 1628
  also on St. John's College
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• Oresteia by Aeschylus, -500 · Lexile 1380L
  also on St. John's College
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• Parmenides by Plato, -400
  also on St. John's College
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• Pepita Jimenez by Juan Valera, 1874 · ages 14–18 · AR 6.6 · AR Interest: UG (9–12)
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• Phædra by Jean Racine, 1963
  also on St. John's College
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• Phaedrus by Plato, -400
  also on St. John's College
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• Philaster by Beaumont and Fletcher, 1620 · Lexile 1060L
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• Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, 1678 · ages 14–18 · Lexile 1030L · AR 10.4 · AR Interest: UG (9–12)
  also on Deep Roots Grade, Mensa Kids
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• Poems and Songs by Robert Burns, 1770 · Lexile 1110L
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• Polyeucte by Pierre Corneille, 1641
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• Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, 1813 · ages 12–17 · Lexile 1070L · AR 12.0
  also on Deep Roots Grade, Mensa Kids, St. John's College, The Good & The Beautiful, TJEd Adult Recommended
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• Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Browne, 1643 · Lexile 1430L
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• Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, 1819 · ages 9–14 · Lexile 1280L · AR 11.1 · AR Interest: MG (4–8)
  also on Mensa Kids, TJEd Early Recommended
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• Scientific Papers by Louis Pasteur, 1860
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• Scientific Papers by Charles Lyell, 1830
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• She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, 1773 · ages 14–17
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• Skipper Worse by Alexander L. Kielland, 1882
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• Some Thoughts Concerning Education by John Locke, 1660
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• Sophist by Plato, -400
  also on St. John's College
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• Symposium by Plato, -400
  also on St. John's College
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• Tales from the Arabian Nights by Anonymous, 1710
  also on TJEd Early Recommended
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• Tartuffe by Molière, 1664
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• Theaetetus by Plato, -400 · Lexile 1060L
  also on St. John's College
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• The Alchemist by Ben Jonson, 1612 · Lexile 860L
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• The Apology, Phædo and Crito by Plato, -400
  also on St. John's College
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• The Bhagavad-Gita by Hindu, -400 · Lexile 1770L
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• The Cenci by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819
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• The Chronicles of Jean Froissart by Jean Froissart, 1400
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• The Confessions by Augustine, 400 · Lexile 1270L
  also on St. John's College
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• The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever by Oliver Wendell Holmes, 2005
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• The Devil’s Pool by George Sand, 2004
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• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, 1304 · Lexile 1300L
  also on Mensa Kids, St. John's College, TJEd Adult Recommended
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• The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, 1614
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• The Golden Sayings by Epictetus, 1869
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• The History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, 1749 · Lexile 1360L · AR 13.8
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• The Holy Grail by Sir Thomas Malory, 1450 · Lexile 1300L
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• The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, 1418 · ages 15–18
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• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, 1820 · ages 14–18 · Lexile 1460L · AR 11.0 · AR Interest: UG (9–12)
  also on Mensa Kids, TJEd Early Recommended
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• The Life of Sir Thomas More by William Roper, 1530 · ages 13–17
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• The Lives of Donne and Herbert by Izaak Walton, 2004
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• The Man without a Country by Edward Everett Hale, 1863
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Only the first 100 of 126 are listed here. Choosing an age narrows the list.