How to Read the
Great Books of the Western World
The key to this collection, published by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., is
the Syntopicon, which enables the reader to trace the development of
selected ideas from author to author over the centuries. However, not all of
these works are equally important to a complete education. For this purpose, it
is recommended that those works marked by a > be read in order,
preferably before beginning college. Those works marked by a < are
mainly of historical interest, and not the best ways to first approach their
subjects, so they might be skipped except when the Syntopicon is used to
trace an idea.
At the end is a list of works by the same authors recommended either as
additional reading, marked by a +, or as recommended over the work(s)
selected for inclusion in this set, marked by a ^.
- 1 Syntopicon I
- 2 Syntopicon II
- 3 Homer
- > The Illiad
- > The Odyssey
- 4 Aeschylus
- > Complete Plays
- 4 Sophocles
- > Complete Plays
- 4 Euripides
- > Complete Plays
- 4 Aristophanes
- > Complete Plays
- 5 Herodotus
- > The History
- 5 Thucydides
- > The History of the Peloponessian War
- 6 Plato
- > Complete Dialogues
- 7 Aristotle I
- 8 Aristotle II
- > Complete Works
- 9 Hippocrates
- < Hippocratic Writings
- 9 Galen
- < On the Natural Faculties
- 10 Euclid
- > Elements
- 10 Archimedes
- < Works
- 10 Nicomachus
- < Introduction to Arithmetic
- 11 Lucretius
- > The Way Things Are
- 11 Epictetus
- > Discourses
- 11 Marcus Aurelius
- > Meditations
- 11 Plotinius
- > The Six Enneads
- 12 Virgil
- > Eclogues and Georgics
- > The Aeneid
- 13 Plutarch
- > Lives
- 14 Tacitus
- > The Annals
- > The Histories
- 15 Ptolemy
- < The Almagest
- 15 Copernicus, Nicolaus
- < On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
- 15 Kepler, Johannes
- < Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
- < The Harmonies of the World
- 16 Augustine
- < The Confessions
- < The City of God
- < On Christian Doctrine
- 17 Aquinas, Thomas I
- 18 Aquinas, Thomas II
- < Summa Theologica
- 19 Dante Alighieri
- > The Devine Comedy
- 19 Chaucer, Goeffrey
- > Troilus and Criseyde
- > The Canterbury Tales
- 20 Calvin, John
- < Institutes for the Christian Religion
- 21 Machiavelli, Niccolò
- > The Prince
- 21 Hobbes, Thomas
- > Leviathan
- 22 Rabelais, François
- > Gargantua and Pantagruel
- 23 Erasmus, Desiderius
- > Praise of Folly
- 23 Montaigne, Michel de
- > Essays
- 24 Shakespeare, William I
- 25 Shakespeare, William II
- > Complete Works
- 26 Gilbert, William
- < On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
- 26 Galileo Galilei
- < Concerning Two New Sciences
- 26 Harvey, William
- < On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
- < On the Circulation of the Blood
- < On the Generation of Animals
- 27 Cervantes, Miguel de
- > Don Quixote
- 28 Bacon, Francis
- > Advancement of Learning
- > Novum Organum
- > New Atlantis
- 28 Descartes, René
- > Rules for the Direction of the Mind
- > Discourse on the Method
- > Meditations on First Philosophy
- > Objections against the Meditations and Replies
- < The Geometry
- 28 Spinoza, Baruch
- > Ethics
- 29 Milton, John
- < English Minor Poems
- > Paradise Lost
- > Samson Agonistes
- < Arcopagitica
- 30 Pascal, Blaise
- > The Provincial Letters
- > Pensées
- < Scientific Treatises
- 31 Moliére (Jean Baptiste Poquelin)
- > The School for Wives
- < Critique of the School for Wives
- > Tartuffe
- > Don Juan
- > The Miser
- > The Would-Be Gentleman
- > The Imaginary Invalid
- 31 Racine, Jean Baptiste
- > Berenice
- > Phaedra
- 32 Newton, Isaac
- < Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
- < Optics
- 32 Huygens, Christiaan
- < Treatise on Light
- 33 Locke, John
- > Concerning Toleration
- > Concerning Civil Government
- > Concerning Human Understanding
- 33 Berkeley, George
- > The Principles of Human Knowledge
- 33 Hume, David
- > An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- 34 Swift, Jonathan
- > Gulliver's Travels
- 34 Voltaire (François Marie Arouet)
- > Candide
- 34 Diderot, Denis
- > Rameau's Nephew
- 35 Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat)
- > The Spirit of Laws
- 35 Rousseau, Jean Jacques
- > On the Origin of Inequality
- > On Political Economy
- > The Social Contract
- 36 Smith, Adam
- > The Wealth of Nations
- 37 Gibbon, Edward I
- 38 Gibbon, Edward II
- > The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
- 39 Kant, Immanuel
- > The Critique of Pure Reason
- > The Critique of Practical Reason
- > The Critique of Judgement
- 40 American State Papers
- 40 The Federalist
- 40 Mill, John Stuart
- > On Liberty
- > Representative Government
- > Utilitarianism
- 41 Boswell, James
- > Life of Samuel Johnson
- 42 Lavoisier, Antoine
- < Elements of Chemistry
- 42 Faraday, Michael
- < Researches in Electricity
- 43 Hegel, Georg
- > The Philosophy of Right
- > The Philosophy of History
- 43 Kierkegaard, Sören
- > Fear and Trembling
- 43 Nietzsche, Friedrich
- > Beyond Good and Evil
- 44 Toqueville, Alexis de
- > Democracy in America
- 45 Goethe, Johann
- > Faust (parts I & II)
- 45 Balzac, Honoré de
- > Cousin Bette
- 46 Austen, Jane
- > Emma
- 46 Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans)
- > Middlemarch
- 47 Dickens, Charles
- > Little Dorrit
- 48 Melville, Herman
- > Moby Dick
- 48 Twain, Mark (S.L. Clemens)
- > Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- 49 Darwin, Charles
- > The Origin of Species
- > The Descent of Man
- 50 Marx, Karl
- < Capital
- < Manifesto of the Communist Party (with Friedrich Engels)
- 51 Tolstoy, Leo
- > War and Peace
- 52 Dostoevsky, Fyodor
- > The Brothers Karamasov
- 52 Ibsen, Henrik
- > A Doll's House
- > The Wild Duck
- > Hedda Gabler
- > The Master Builder
- 53 James, William
- > The Principles of Psychology
- 54 Freud, Sigmund
- < The Major Works
- 55 James, William
- > Pragmatism
- 55 Bergson, Henri
- > An Introduction to Metaphysics
- 55 Dewey, John
- > Experience and Education
- 55 Whitehead, Alfred North
- > Science and the Modern World
- 55 Russell, Bertrand
- > The Problems of Philosophy
- 55 Heidegger, Martin
- > What is Metaphysics?
- 55 Wittgenstein, Ludwig
- > Philosophical Investigations
- 55 Barth, Karl
- > The Word of God and the Word of Man
- 56 Poincaré, Henri
- > Science and Hypothesis
- 56 Planck, Max
- > Scientific Autobiography
- 56 Whitehead, Alfred North
- > Introduction to Mathematics
- 56 Einstein, Albert
- > Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
- 56 Eddington, Arthur
- > The Expanding Universe
- 56 Bohr, Niels
- > Atomic Theory: The Description of Nature
- > Bohr-Einstein Dialogues
- 56 Hardy, G.H. (Godfrey Harold)
- > A Mathematician's Apology
- 56 Heisenberg, Werner
- > Physics and Philosophy
- 56 Schrödinger, Erwin
- > What is Life?
- 56 Dobzhansky, Theodosius
- > Genetics and the Origin of Species
- 56 Waddington, Conrad Hal
- > The Nature of Life
- 57 Veblen, Thorstein
- > The Theory of the Leisure Class
- 57 Tawney, Richard Henry
- > The Acquisitive Society
- 57 Keynes, John Maynard
- > General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
- 58 Frazer, James George
- > The Golden Bough (selections)
- 58 Weber, Max
- > Essays in Sociology (selections)
- 58 Huizinga, Johan
- > The Waning of the Middle Ages
- 58 Levi-Strauss, Claude
- > Structural Anthropology (selections)
- 59 James, Henry
- > The Beast in the Jungle
- 59 Shaw, Bernard
- > St. Joan
- 59 Conrad, Joseph
- > The Heart of Darkness
- 59 Chekhov, Anton
- > Uncle Vanya
- 59 Pirandello, Luigi
- > Six Characters in Search of an Author
- 59 Proust, Marcel
- > Swann in Love
- 59 Cather, Willa
- > A Lost Lady
- 59 Mann, Thomas
- > Death in Venice
- 59 Joyce, James
- > Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- 60 Woolf, Virginia
- > To the Lighthouse
- 60 Kafka, Franz
- > The Metamorphosis
- 60 Lawrence, D.H. (David Herbert)
- > The Prussian Officer
- 60 Eliot, T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
- > The Waste Land
- 60 O'Neill, Eugene
- > Mourning Becomes Electra
- 60 Fitzgerald, F. Scott
- > The Great Gatsby
- 60 Faulkner, William
- > A Rose for Emily
- 60 Brecht, Bertolt
- > Mother Courage and her Children
- 60 Hemingway, Ernest
- > The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
- 60 Orwell, George
- > Animal Farm
- 60 Beckett, Samuel
- > Waiting for Godot
Additional Works
- Kant, Immanuel
- + Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. Lewis White
Beck, Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1969.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich
- + Ecce Homo and the Birth of Tragedy, tr. Clifton Fadiman,
New York: Modern Library, 1927.
- + Will to Power, tr. Walter Kaufmann & R.J. Hollingdale,
New York: Random House, 1967.
- + Thus Spake Zarathustra, tr. Thomas Cannon, New York: Modern
Library, 1905.
- Dickens, Charles
- + The Adventures of Oliver Twist, New York: Oxford U. Press,
1987.
- + David Copperfield, New York: Oxford U. Press, 1981.
- + A Tale of Two Cities, New York: Oxford U. Press, 1987.
- Tolstoy, Leo
- + Anna Karenina, New York: W.W. Norton, 1970.
- Dostoevsky, Fyodor
- + Crime and Punishment, New York: W.W. Norton, 1975.
- James, William
- + William James: The Essential Writings, ed Bruce W.
Wilshire, Albany: SUNY Press, 1984, esp. "The Moral Equivalent of
War", p.349.
- Dewey, John
- + Philosophy and Civilization, Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1968.
- + Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, New York: Holt, Rinehart
& Winston, 1938.
- Russell, Bertrand
- ^ The Will to Doubt, New York: Philosophical Library, 1958.
- ^ Why I am not a Christian ..., New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1957.
- James, Henry
- ^ Novels, 1871-1880 (Watch and Ward, Roderick Hudson, The
American, The Europeans), 1983;
- ^ Novels, 1881-1886 (Washington Square, The Portrait of a
Lady, The Bostonians), 1985;
- ^ Novels, 1886-1890 (The Princess Casamassima, The
Reverberator, The Tragic Muse), 1989; New York: Viking.
- ^ Theory of Fiction, Lincoln: U. Nebraska Press, 1972.
- ^ The Art of the Novel, New York: Scribner, 1962.
- Shaw, Bernard
- + Seven Plays (Mrs. Warren's Profession, Arms and the Man,
Candida, The Devil's Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Saint
Joan), New York: Dodd, Mead, 1967.
- Chekhov, Anton
- ^ The Best Known Works of Anton Chekhov, Freeport: Books for
Libraries Press, 1972.
- Proust, Marcel
- ^ Remembrance of Things Past, New York: Random House, 1981.
- Joyce, James
- ^ Ulysses, New York: Random House, 1986.
- ^ Finnegan's Wake, New York: Viking, 1974.
- Lawrence, D.H.
- ^ Sons and Lovers, New York: Seltzer, 1913.
- ^ Women in Love, New York: Viking, 1968.
- ^ Complete Plays, New York: Viking, 1966.
- Eliot, T.S.
- ^ Complete Poems and Plays, New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, 1962.
- O'Neill, Eugene
- ^ Complete Plays, New York: Viking, 1988.
- Faulkner, William
- ^ As I Lay Dying, New York: Modern Library, 1967.
- ^ The Sound and the Fury, New York: Random House, 1984.
- Hemingway, Ernest
- ^ The Sun Also Rises, New York: Scribner, 1954.
- ^ A Farewell to Arms, New York: Modern Library, 1932.
- ^ For Whom the Bell Tolls, New York: Scribner, 1940.
- ^ The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Scribner, 1952.
- ^ Hemingway's African Stories, New York: Scribner, 1969.
- ^ Islands in the Stream, New York: Scribner, 1970.
- Orwell, George
- ^ 1984, San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1984.
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