Journey through Harvard University president Charles Eliot’s “five-foot shelf” of classics. This collection, first published in the early 1900s, remains one of the most comprehensive and well-researched anthologies of all time. Making good on earlier claims that he could fit the elements of a liberal education on a five-foot shelf, Eliot gathered this collection of key works, together with English professor William Neilson—who selected editions and wrote introductions. The massive collection covers major literary figures, philosophers, theologians, folklore, and historical subjects through the end of the nineteenth century. Originally published as a 51-volume collection of classics, the rise of modernism prompted Dr. Eliot to create an additional 20-volume collection of fiction—“The Shelf of Fiction”—to supplement his first collection. These two collections come together to create The Harvard Classics and Fiction Collection (71 vols.). Among...

Enrich your study of early English history with over 25,000 historical documents and literary works. Spanning from the first works mass produced in English to the end of the seventeenth century, this collection provides insight into sixteenth and seventeenth century English literature, politics, and culture.

Teach and train the next generation with this library of resources devoted to helping young people become better grounded in Scripture and the classics. Build on the foundation laid by those who came before using digital tools that enhance the great deposit of the past.

Explore key essays by luminary sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thinkers Francis Bacon, John Milton and Thomas Browne. Find Bacon’s utopian novel, New Atlantis with visions of human discovery, generosity, and enlightenment. Get into Bacon’s thought on a number of public and private issues, with 59 essays on everything from truth and love to riches and fame. Read Milton’s prose with eloquent philosophical defense of free speech and free press, and discover his views concerning education—including ideas for its reform, its purpose, and an ideal curriculum. Discover Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici (The Religion of a Doctor), containing personal musings on Christian faith, hope, and charity—both a spiritual study and a psychological self-portrait. The Harvard Classics Journey through “Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf.” This massive collection, designed to provide the elements of a liberal education, was compiled by distinguished Harvard University president Charles Eliot in the early...