Gateway to the Great Books
Encyclopedia
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s originally published by Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
Inc. in 1963 and edited by Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...
and Robert Maynard Hutchins. The set was designed as an introduction to the Great Books of the Western World
Great Books of the Western World
Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952 by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. to present the western canon in a single package of 54 volumes. The series is now in its second edition and contains 60 volumes.-History:The project got its start...
, published by the same organization and editors in 1952. The set included selections - short stories, plays, essays, letters, and extracts from longer works - by more than one hundred authors. The selections were generally shorter and in some ways simpler than the full-length books included in the Great Books.
Authors
A number of authors in the Great Books set - such as PlutarchPlutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, Epictetus
Epictetus
Epictetus was a Greek sage and Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia , and lived in Rome until banishment when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece where he lived the rest of his life. His teachings were noted down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses...
, Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
, Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
, Jean Jacques Rousseau, David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
, Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
and William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
- were also represented by shorter works in the Gateway volumes. And several Gateway readings discussed authors in the Great Books series. For instance, a selection from Henry Adams'
Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres critiqued the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Indeed, many writers in the Gateway set were eventually "promoted" to the second edition (1990) of the Great Books, such as Alexis de Toqueville, Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
and John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
.
Index, editorial material, criticism
The set included an index similar to the Great Books Syntopicon, along with reading plans of increasing difficulty. Hutchins contributed an introduction that was essentially a boiled-down version of The Great ConversationGreat Conversation
The Great Conversation is a characterization of references and allusions made by authors in the Western canon to the works of their predecessors. As such it is a name used in the promotion of the Great Books of the Western World published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. in 1952...
, his preface to the Great Books. The set contained biographical notes on the various authors, similar to those in the Great Books. However, the set also contained editorial
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
introductions to the selections, which were generally not included in the Great Books. In another departure from the Great Books series, the set included black-and-white drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
s of most of the authors by Chicago portraitist Fred Steffen, who also wrote brief notes describing the illustrations. Details from a number of these drawings were featured on the volume covers.
Although the editors maintained that many selections were appropriate to readers as young as seventh-grade students, the set included a fair amount of material challenging for the most experienced reader. In what may have been a response to complaints about the cramped typography of the Great Books, the Gateway volumes were single-column with larger, more readable type.
Many of the same criticisms leveled at the Great Books can be made of the Gateway set. The books concentrated heavily on Western European
Western literature
Western literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth...
and American literature
American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
and included few selections by women or minority authors. The set is now out of print but is easily available from used book
Used book
A used book or secondhand book is a book which has been owned before by an owner other than the publisher or retailer, usually by an individual or library....
website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
s on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
Contents
Volume 1: Introduction; Syntopical Guide- A letter to the reader
- Introduction
- Syntopical guide
- Appendices
- A plan of graded reading
- Recommended novels
- Recommended anthologies of poetry
Volume 2: Imaginative Literature I
- Daniel DefoeDaniel DefoeDaniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
, Excerpts from Robinson CrusoeRobinson CrusoeRobinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and... - Rudyard KiplingRudyard KiplingJoseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, "Mowgli's BrothersMowgli's Brothers"Mowgli's Brothers" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. Chronologically it is the first story about Mowgli although it was written after "In the Rukh" in which Mowgli appears as an adult.The story first appeared in the January 1894 issue of St...
" from The Jungle BookThe Jungle BookThe Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six... - Victor HugoVictor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, "The Battle with the Cannon" from Ninety-ThreeNinety-ThreeNinety-Three is the last novel by the French writer Victor Hugo. Published in 1874, shortly after the bloody upheaval of the Paris Commune, the novel concerns the Revolt in the Vendée and Chouannerie – the counter-revolutionary revolts in 1793 during the French Revolution... - Guy de MaupassantGuy de MaupassantHenri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
, "Two FriendsDeux AmisDeux amis or Two Friends is a short story by French author Guy de Maupassant, published in 1882. The story is set in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, when the city lay under siege...
" - Ernest HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, "The Killers" from Men Without Women - Sir Walter Scott, "The Two Drovers" from Chronicles of the CanongateChronicles of the CanongateChronicles of the Canongate was a collection of stories by Sir Walter Scott, published in 1827 and 1828. They are named after the Canongate, in Edinburgh.* 1st series: **The Highland Widow**The Two Drovers...
- Joseph ConradJoseph ConradJoseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
, "YouthYouth (Conrad story)"Youth" is an autobiographical short story by Joseph Conrad. It was written in 1898 and included as the first story in the 1902 volume Youth, a Narrative, and Two Other Stories. This volume also includes Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether, which are concerned with maturity and old age,...
" - VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, MicromégasMicromégas"Micromégas" is a short story by the French philosopher and satirist Voltaire. It is a significant development in the history of literature because it originates ideas which helped create the genre of science fiction.... - Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, "The Happy Prince" from The Happy Prince and Other Tales - Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, "The Tell-Tale HeartThe Tell-Tale Heart"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...
"; "The Masque of the Red DeathThe Masque of the Red Death"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death" , is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a...
" - Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis StevensonRobert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Mark TwainMark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
(Samuel Clemens), The Man That Corrupted HadleyburgThe Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" is a piece of short fiction by Mark Twain. It first appeared in Harper's Monthly in December 1899, and was subsequently published by Harper Collins in the collection The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Sketches .-Plot summary:Chapter... - Charles DickensCharles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, "A Full and Faithful Report of the Memorable Trial of Bardell against Pickwick" from The Pickwick PapersThe Pickwick PapersThe Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club is the first novel by Charles Dickens. After the publication, the widow of the illustrator Robert Seymour claimed that the idea for the novel was originally her husband's; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any... - Nikolai GogolNikolai GogolNikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
, "The OvercoatThe Overcoat"The Overcoat" is the title of a short story by Ukrainian-born Russian author Nikolai Gogol, published in 1842. The story and its author have had great influence on Russian literature, thus spawning Fyodor Dostoyevsky's famous quote: "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'." The story has been...
" - Samuel ButlerSamuel Butler (novelist)Samuel Butler was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh...
, "Customs and Opinions of the Erewhonians" from ErewhonErewhonErewhon: or, Over the Range is a novel by Samuel Butler, published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed in which part of the world Erewhon is, but it is clear that it is a fictional country... - Sherwood AndersonSherwood AndersonSherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.-Early life:Anderson was born in Clyde, Ohio,...
, "I'm a Fool" - Anonymous, Aucassin and NicoletteAucassin and NicoletteAucassin et Nicolette is an anonymous medieval French chantefable, or combination of prose and verse .-History:...
Volume 3: Imaginative Literature II
- Stephen CraneStephen CraneStephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
, "The Open BoatThe Open Boat"The Open Boat" is a short story by American author Stephen Crane . First published in 1897, it was based on Crane's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent. Crane was stranded at sea for thirty...
" - Herman MelvilleHerman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, "Billy BuddBilly BuddBilly Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1962 film produced, directed, and co-written by Peter Ustinov, based on Melville's novel...
" - Ivan Bunin, "The Gentleman from San Francisco"
- Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
, "Rappaccini's Daughter" - George EliotGeorge EliotMary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
, "The Lifted Veil" - Lucius Apuleius, "Cupid and Psyche" from The Golden AssThe Golden AssThe Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
- Ivan TurgenevIvan TurgenevIvan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, is a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century...
, "First Love" - Fyodor DostoevskyFyodor DostoevskyFyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
, "White NightsWhite Nights (short story)"White Nights" is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, originally published in 1848, early in the writer's career. Film adaptations have been made by Russian director Ivan Pyryev , by Italian director Luchino Visconti , by French director Robert Bresson , by Iranian director Farzad Motamen...
" - John GalsworthyJohn GalsworthyJohn Galsworthy OM was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter...
, "The Apple-Tree" - Gustave FlaubertGustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
, "The Legend of St. Julian the HospitallerThree Tales (Flaubert)Three Tales is a work by Gustave Flaubert that was originally published in French in 1877. It consists of the short stories "A Simple Heart", "Saint Julian" and "Hérodias"...
" - F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott FitzgeraldFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
, "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" - Honoré de BalzacHonoré de BalzacHonoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
, "A Passion in the Desert" - Anton ChekhovAnton ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
, "The Darling" - Isaac SingerIsaac SingerIsaac Merritt Singer was an inventor, actor, and entrepreneur. He made important improvements in the design of the sewing machine and was the founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company...
, "The Spinoza of Market Street" - Alexander Pushkin, "The Queen of Spades"
- D. H. LawrenceD. H. LawrenceDavid Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
, "The Rocking-Horse WinnerThe Rocking-Horse Winner"The Rocking-Horse Winner" is a short story by D. H. Lawrence. It was first published in July 1926, in Harper's Bazaar and subsequently appeared in the first volume of Lawrence's collected short stories...
" - Henry JamesHenry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, "The Pupil" - Thomas MannThomas MannThomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
, "Mario and the Magician" - Isak Dinesen, "Sorrow-Acre"
- Leo TolstoyLeo TolstoyLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, "The Death of Ivan IlyichThe Death of Ivan IlyichThe Death of Ivan Ilyich , first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, and is considered to be one of the masterpieces of his late fiction, written shortly after his religious conversion of the late 1870s.-Characters:...
"; "The Three Hermits"; "What Men Live ByWhat Men Live ByWhat Men Live By is an opera in one act by Bohuslav Martinů to an English libretto by the composer, based on the story by Leo Tolstoy. It was composed in 1951-1952 when the composer was living in the U.S.A....
"
Volume 4: Imaginative Literature III
- MolièreMolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, The MisanthropeThe MisanthropeThe Misanthrope is the first EP from metal band Darkest Hour. It was released in 1996 on the defunct label Death Truck Records. It is much more hardcore orientated metalcore unlike their later releases.- Track listing :# "Vise" - 5:30...
, The Doctor in Spite of Himself - Richard Sheridan, The School for Scandal
- Henrik IbsenHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
, An Enemy of the People - Anton ChekhovAnton ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
, The Cherry Orchard - George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, The Man of Destiny - John SyngeJohn Millington SyngeEdmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre...
, Riders to the Sea - Eugene O'NeillEugene O'NeillEugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
, The Emperor Jones
Volume 5: Critical Essays
- Virginia WoolfVirginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, "How Should One Read a Book?" - Matthew ArnoldMatthew ArnoldMatthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
, "The Study of Poetry"; "Sweetness and Light" - Charles Augustin Sainte-BeuveCharles Augustin Sainte-BeuveCharles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.-Early years:...
, "What Is a Classic?"; "Montaigne" - Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, "Of Beauty"; "Of Discourse"; "Of Studies" - David HumeDavid HumeDavid Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, "Of the Standard of TasteFour DissertationsFour Dissertations is a collection of four essays by the Scottish enlightenment philosopher David Hume, first published in 1757. The four essays are:The Natural History of ReligionOf the PassionsOf TragedyOf the Standard of Taste...
" - Arthur SchopenhauerArthur SchopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
, "On Style"; "On Some Forms of Literature"; "On the Comparative Place of Interest and Beauty in Works of Art" - Friedrich SchillerFriedrich SchillerJohann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
, "On Simple and Sentimental Poetry" - Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
, "A Defence of Poetry" - Walt WhitmanWalt WhitmanWalter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, Preface to Leaves of GrassLeaves of GrassLeaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman . Though the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death... - William HazlittWilliam HazlittWilliam Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...
, "My First Acquaintance with Poets", "On Swift", "Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen" - Charles Lamb, "My First Play", "Dream Children, a Reverie", "Sanity of True Genius"
- Samuel JohnsonSamuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, Preface to Shakespeare - Thomas de QuinceyThomas de QuinceyThomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
, Literature of Knowledge and Literature of Power", "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" - T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, "Dante", "Tradition and the Individual Talent"
Volume 6: Man and Society I
- John Stuart MillJohn Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
, "Childhood and Youth" from Autobiography - Mark TwainMark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, "Learning the River" from Life on the MississippiLife on the MississippiLife on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain, of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi many years after the War.... - Jean de la BruyereJean de La BruyèreJean de La Bruyère was a French essayist and moralist.-Ancestry:He was born in Paris, not, as was once thought, at Dourdan in 1645...
, "Characters" from A Book of Characters - Thomas CarlyleThomas CarlyleThomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
, 'The Hero as King" from On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History - Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
, "Thoreau" - Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
, "Sketch of Abraham Lincoln" - Walt WhitmanWalt WhitmanWalter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, "Death of Abraham Lincoln" - Virginia WoolfVirginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, "The Art of Biography" - XenophonXenophonXenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
, "The March to the Sea" from The Persian ExpeditionAnabasis (Xenophon)Anabasis is the most famous work, in seven books, of the Greek professional soldier and writer Xenophon. The journey it narrates is his best known accomplishment and "one of the great adventures in human history," as Will Durant expressed the common assessment.- The account :Xenophon accompanied...
; "The Character of Socrates" from MemorabiliaMemorabilia (Xenophon)Memorabilia is a collection of Socratic dialogues by Xenophon, a student of Socrates... - William H. PrescottWilliam H. PrescottWilliam Hickling Prescott was an American historian and Hispanist, who is widely recognized by historiographers to have been the first American scientific historian...
, "The Land of Montezuma" from The Conquest of Mexico - Haniel LongHaniel LongHaniel Clark Long was an American poet, novelist, publisher and academic. He is best known for his novella, Interlinear to Cabeza de Vaca , a fictionalized account of the true story of a Spanish conquistador in 16th century North America.-Life and career:Born to Methodist missionaries Samuel P...
, "The Power within Us" - Pliny the YoungerPliny the YoungerGaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo , better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him...
, "The Eruption of Vesuvius" - TacitusTacitusPublius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
, "The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola" - Francois GuizotFrançois GuizotFrançois Pierre Guillaume Guizot was a French historian, orator, and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848, a conservative liberal who opposed the attempt by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, and worked to sustain a constitutional...
, "Civilization" from History of Civilization in Europe - Henry Adams, "The United States in 1800" from History of the United States of America
- John Bagnell Bury, "Herodotus" from The Ancient Greek Historians
- LucianLucianLucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
, "The Way to Write History" - Great Documents
- The English Bill of RightsBill of Rights 1689The Bill of Rights or the Bill of Rights 1688 is an Act of the Parliament of England.The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It was a re-statement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 ,...
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the CitizenDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the CitizenThe Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is a fundamental document of the French Revolution, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid...
- The Virginia Declaration of RightsVirginia Declaration of RightsThe Virginia Declaration of Rights is a document drafted in 1776 to proclaim the inherent rights of men, including the right to rebel against "inadequate" government...
- The Declaration of IndependenceUnited States Declaration of IndependenceThe Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
- Charter of the United Nations
- Universal Declaration of Human RightsUniversal Declaration of Human RightsThe Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
- The English Bill of Rights
- Thomas PaineThomas PaineThomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
, "A Call to Patriots - December 23, 1776" - George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
, "Circular Letter to the Governors of All the States on Disbanding the Army"; "The Farewell AddressGeorge Washington's Farewell AddressGeorge Washington's Farewell Address was written to "The People of the United States" near the end of his second term as President of the United States and before his retirement to his home at Mount Vernon....
" - Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, "The Virginia ConstitutionConstitution of VirginiaThe Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia is the document that defines and limits the powers of the state government and the basic rights of the citizens of the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. Like all other state constitutions, it is supreme over Virginia's laws and acts of government,...
" from Notes on the State of VirginiaNotes on the State of VirginiaNotes on the State of Virginia was a book written by Thomas Jefferson. He completed the first edition in 1781, and updated and enlarged the book in 1782 and 1783...
; "First Inaugural Address"; "Biographical Sketches" - Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
, "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America", "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania" - Jean de CrevecoeurJean de CrèvecoeurMichel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur , naturalized in New York as John Hector St. John, was a French-American writer. He was born in Caen, Normandy, France, to the Comte and Comtesse de Crèvecœur .-Biography:In 1755 he immigrated to New France in North America...
, "The Making of Americans" from Letters from an American Farmer - Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de TocquevilleAlexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
, "Observations on American Life and Government" from Democracy in AmericaDemocracy in AmericaDe la démocratie en Amérique is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. A "literal" translation of its title is Of Democracy in America, but the usual translation of the title is simply Democracy in America... - Henry David ThoreauHenry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
, "Civil DisobedienceCivil Disobedience (Thoreau)Civil Disobedience is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849...
"; "A Plea for Captain John BrownA Plea for Captain John BrownA Plea for Captain John Brown is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. It is based on a speech Thoreau first delivered to an audience at Concord, Massachusetts on October 30, 1859, two weeks after John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, and repeated several times before Brown’s execution on December 2, 1859...
" - Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
, "Address at Cooper InstituteCooper Union speechThe Cooper Union Speech, or Address, was delivered by Abraham Lincoln on February 27, 1860, at Cooper Union, in New York City. Lincoln was not yet the Republican nominee for the presidency, as the convention was scheduled for May. It is considered one of his most important speeches...
"; "First Inaugural AddressLincoln's first inaugural addressAbraham Lincoln's first inaugural address was delivered by President Abraham Lincoln, on Monday, March 4, 1861, as part of his taking of the oath of office for his first term as the sixteenth President of the United States...
"; "Letter to Horace Greeley", "Meditation on the Divine Will"; "The Gettysburg AddressGettysburg AddressThe Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the most well-known speeches in United States history. It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery...
"; "Second Inaugural AddressLincoln's second inaugural addressAbraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, during his second inauguration as President of the United States. At a time when victory over the secessionists in the American Civil War was within days and slavery was near an end, Lincoln did not speak of happiness, but of...
"; "Last Public Address"
Volume 7: Man and Society II
- Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, "Of Youth and Age", "Of Parents and Children", "Of Marriage and Single Life", "Of Great Place", "Of Seditions and Troubles", "Of Custom and Education", "Of Followers and Friends", "Of Usury", "Of Riches" - Jonathan SwiftJonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
, "Resolutions when I Come to Be Old", "An Essay on Modern Education", "A Meditation upon a Broomstick", "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or CountryA Modest ProposalA Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in...
" - David HumeDavid HumeDavid Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, "Of Refinement in the Arts"; "Of Money"; "Of the Balance of Trade"; "Of Taxes"; "Of the Study of History"Essays, Moral, Political, and LiteraryEssays, Moral, Political, and Literary is a two volume compilation of essays by David Hume. Part I includes the essays from Essays, Moral and Political, plus two essays from Four Dissertations. The contents of this part largely covers political and aesthetic issues. Part II includes the essays... - PlutarchPlutarchPlutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, "Of Bashfulness" - Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis StevensonRobert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
, "The Lantern-Bearers" from Across the Plains - John RuskinJohn RuskinJohn Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
, "An Idealist's Arraignment of the Age" from Four Clavigera - William JamesWilliam JamesWilliam James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
, "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings", "The Energies of Men", "Great Men and Their Environment" - Arthur SchopenhauerArthur SchopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
, "On Education" - Michael FaradayMichael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
, "Observations on Mental Education" - Edmund BurkeEdmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol" - John Calhoun, "The Concurrent Majority"
- Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Machiavelli"
- VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, "English Men and Ideas" from Letters on the English - DanteDANTEDelivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, "On World Government" from De Monarchia - Jean Jacques Rousseau, "A Lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe"
- Immanuel KantImmanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, "Perpetual Peace" - Karl von Clausewitz, "What Is War?" from On War
- Thomas Robert Malthus, "The Principle of Population" from Population: The First Essay
Volume 8: Natural Science
- Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, "The Sphinx" - John TyndallJohn TyndallJohn Tyndall FRS was a prominent Irish 19th century physicist. His initial scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he studied thermal radiation, and produced a number of discoveries about processes in the atmosphere...
, "Michael Faraday" from Faraday as a Discoverer - Eve CurieÈve CurieÈve Denise Curie Labouisse was a French-American writer, journalist and pianist. Ève Curie was the younger daughter of Marie Curie and Pierre Curie. Her sister was Irène Joliot-Curie and her brother-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie...
, "The Discovery of Radium" from Madame Curie - Charles DarwinCharles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, "Autobiography" - Jean Henri FabreJean Henri FabreJean-Henri Casimir Fabre was a French entomologist and author.-Life:Fabre was born in Saint-Léons in Aveyron, France....
, "A Laboratory of the Open Fields"; "The Sacred Beetle" - Loren EiseleyLoren EiseleyLoren Eiseley was an American anthropologist, educator, philosopher, and natural science writer, who taught and published books from the 1950s through the 1970s. During this period he received more than 36 honorary degrees and was a fellow of many distinguished professional societies...
, "On Time" - Rachel CarsonRachel CarsonRachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....
, "The Sunless Sea" from The Sea Around UsThe Sea Around UsThe Sea Around Us is a prize-winning 1951 bestseller by Rachel Carson about oceanography, marine biology and the ecosystem within and around the world's oceans and seas. It is the second book Carson wrote, following the well-reviewed but poor-selling Under the Sea Wind , and is the book that... - J. B. S. HaldaneJ. B. S. HaldaneJohn Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...
, "On Being the Right Size" from Possible Worlds - Thomas Henry Huxley, "On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals", "On a Piece of Chalk"
- Francis GaltonFrancis GaltonSir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
, "The Classification of Human Ability" from Hereditary Genius - Claude BernardClaude BernardClaude Bernard was a French physiologist. He was the first to define the term milieu intérieur . Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science"...
, "Experimental Considerations Common to Living Things and Inorganic Bodies" - Ivan PavlovIvan PavlovIvan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
, "Scientific Study of the So-called Psychical Processes in the Higher Animals" - Friedrich WohlerFriedrich WöhlerFriedrich Wöhler was a German chemist, best known for his synthesis of urea, but also the first to isolate several chemical elements.-Biography:He was born in Eschersheim, which belonged to aau...
, "On the Artificial Production of Urea" - Charles LyellCharles LyellSir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
, "Geological Evolution" from Principles of GeologyPrinciples of GeologyPrinciples of Geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation, is a book by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell.... - Galileo, "The Starry MessengerSidereus NunciusSidereus Nuncius is a short treatise published in New Latin by Galileo Galilei in March 1610. It was the first scientific treatise based on observations made through a telescope...
" - Tommaso CampanellaTommaso CampanellaTommaso Campanella OP , baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.-Biography:...
, "Arguments for and against Galileo" from The Defense of Galileo - Michael FaradayMichael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
, The Chemical History of a Candle - Dmitri MendeleevDmitri MendeleevDmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev , was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is credited as being the creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements...
, "The Genesis of a Law of Nature" from The Periodic Law of the Chemical Elements - Hermann von HelmholtzHermann von HelmholtzHermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science...
, "On the Conservation of Force" - Albert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
and Leopold InfeldLeopold InfeldLeopold Infeld was a Polish physicist who worked mainly in Poland and Canada . He was a Rockefeller fellow at Cambridge University and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences....
, "The Rise and Decline of Classical Physics" from The Evolution of Physics - Arthur Eddington, "The Running-Down of the Universe" from Nature and the Physical World
- James Jeans, "Beginnings and Endings" from The Universe Around Us
- Kees BoekeKees BoekeCornelis Boeke was a Dutch reformist educator, Quaker missionary and pacifist. He is best known for his popular essay/book Cosmic View which presents a seminal view of the universe, from the galactic to the microscopic scale, and inspired several films.Boeke tried to renovate education by letting...
, "Cosmic View"
Volume 9: Mathematics
- Lancelot HogbenLancelot HogbenLancelot Thomas Hogben FRS was a versatile British experimental zoologist and medical statistician. He is best known for developing Xenopus laevis as a model organism for biological research in his early career, attacking the eugenics movement in the middle of his career, and popularising books on...
, "Mathematics, the Mirror of Civilization" from Mathematics for the Million - Andrew Russell Forsyth, "Mathematics, in Life and Thought"
- Alfred North WhiteheadAlfred North WhiteheadAlfred North Whitehead, OM FRS was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education...
, "On Mathematical Method", "On the Nature of a Calculus" - Bertrand RussellBertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
, "The Study of Mathematics", "Mathematics and the Metaphysicians", "Definition of Number" - Edward KasnerEdward KasnerEdward Kasner who studied under Cassius Jackson Keyser, was a prominent American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department...
and James R. NewmanJames R. NewmanJames Roy Newman was an American mathematician and mathematical historian. He was also a lawyer, practicing in the state of New York from 1929 to 1941...
, "New Names for Old", "Beyond the Googol" - Tobias DantzigTobias DantzigTobias Dantzig was a Baltic German Russian American mathematician, the father of George Dantzig, and the author of NUMBER: The Language of Science and Aspects of Science .Born in Latvia, Dantzig studied mathematics with Henri Poincaré in Paris...
, "Fingerprints", "The Empty Column" - Leonhard EulerLeonhard EulerLeonhard Euler was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist. He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion...
, "The Seven Bridges of KonigsbergSeven Bridges of KönigsbergThe Seven Bridges of Königsberg is a historically notable problem in mathematics. Its negative resolution by Leonhard Euler in 1735 laid the foundations of graph theory and prefigured the idea of topology....
" - Norman Robert CampbellNorman Robert CampbellNorman Robert Campbell was an English physicist and philosopher of science. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and became a fellow at Trinity in 1902. He was also a research assistant at the Cavendish Laboratory under the direction of J. J. Thomson...
, "Measurement", "Numerical Laws and the Use of Mathematics in Science" - William CliffordWilliam Kingdon CliffordWilliam Kingdon Clifford FRS was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his honour, with interesting applications in contemporary mathematical physics...
, "The Postulates of the Science of Space" from The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences - Henri PoincaréHenri PoincaréJules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science...
, "Space", "Mathematical Creation"; "Chance" - Pierre Simon de Laplace, "Probability" from A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities
- Charles Sanders Peirce, "The Red and the Black"
Volume 10: Philosophical Essays
- John ErskineJohn Erskine (educator)John Erskine was a U.S. educator and author, born in New York City and raised in Weehawken, New Jersey. He graduated from Columbia University ....
, "The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent" - William CliffordWilliam Kingdon CliffordWilliam Kingdon Clifford FRS was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his honour, with interesting applications in contemporary mathematical physics...
, "The Ethics of Belief" - William JamesWilliam JamesWilliam James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
, "The Will to Believe", "The Sentiment of Rationality" - John DeweyJohn DeweyJohn Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
, "The Process of Thought" from How We Think - EpicurusEpicurusEpicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...
, "Letter to Herodotus"; "Letter to Menoeceus" - EpictetusEpictetusEpictetus was a Greek sage and Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia , and lived in Rome until banishment when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece where he lived the rest of his life. His teachings were noted down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses...
, The EnchiridionEnchiridion of EpictetusThe Enchiridion, or Handbook of Epictetus, , often shortened to simply "The Handbook", is a short manual of Stoic ethical advice compiled by Arrian, who had been a pupil of Epictetus at the beginning of the 2nd century.... - Walter PaterWalter PaterWalter Horatio Pater was an English essayist, critic of art and literature, and writer of fiction.-Early life:...
, "The Art of Life" from The Renaissance - PlutarchPlutarchPlutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, "Contentment" - CiceroCiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, "On FriendshipLaelius de AmicitiaLaelius de Amicitia — or simply De Amicitia — is a treatise on friendship by the Roman statesman and author Marcus Tullius Cicero.-Summary:...
"; "On Old Age" - Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, "Of Truth"; "Of Death"; "Of Adversity"; "Of Love"; "Of Friendship"; "Of Anger" - George SantayanaGeorge SantayanaGeorge Santayana was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters...
, "Lucretius"; "Goethe's Faust" - Henry Adams, "St. Thomas Aquinas" from Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
- VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, "The Philosophy of Common Sense" - John Stuart MillJohn Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
, "Nature" - Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
, "Nature"; "Self-RelianceSelf-RelianceSelf-Reliance is an essay written by American Transcendentalist philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's repeating themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts...
"; "Montaigne; or, the Skeptic" - William HazlittWilliam HazlittWilliam Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...
, "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth" - Thomas BrowneThomas BrowneSir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
, "Immortality" from Urn-Burial