Classic Classics – Classic Texts – World Literature

The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction (Vols 1-20)

Wikipedia Article on the Harvard Classics, with Table of Contents

Eliot, Charles W., ed.

Collier & Son 1917

This collection of 20 volumes of great literature was a follow-on project to Harvard President Charles Elliot’s 50-volume collection of world fiction and non-fiction, entitled “The Harvard Classics”. You can find more info about both projects, with a Table of Contents for the fiction collection, at the Wikipedia article link. This also has links to more Wikipedia articles on the books contained in the collection.

Great Books of the Western World (Vols 1-54)

Great Books of the Western World Wikipedia Article – Western Classic Literature

Hutchins, Walter Maynard, ed.

Encyclopedia Britannica 1952

This collection of ‘Great Books’ was conceived in the 1940s as a way of putting the core books of western civilization, as understood by the editors, together in one place. You can read more about the history of this series at the Wikipedia article at the second link, which also contains the complete Table of Contents for the series.

Library of the World’s Best Literature, Ancient and Modern – Audio Version

Warner, Charles Dudley, eds

R.S. Peale 1897

“In the Library of the World’s Best Literature, the editors drew from literature of all times and all kinds what they considered the best pieces of human writing, and compiled an ambitious collection of 45 volumes (with a 46th being an index-guide). Besides the selection and translation of a huge number of poems, letters, short stories and sections of books, the collection offers, before each chapter, a short essay about the author or subject in question. In many cases, chapters contemplate not one author, but certain groups of works, organized by nationality, subject or period; there is, thus, a chapter on Accadian-Babylonian literature, one on the Holy Grail, and one on Chansons, for example.

There are 10 volumes in this Librivox audio collection, each volume containing about 40 to 60 selections, recorded aloud by volunteers.