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The Great Books Foundation, The Great Books: A Reading List [1998]

74 entries: 40 monographical, 34 otherwise

Unranked—arranged alphabetically by author

The New York Public Library Desk Reference, 3rd ed., includes this list devised by the Great Books Foundation, the same organization founded by Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, editors of the Great Books of the Western World set. Very likely this book is not the origin of this list. The Great Books Foundation published numerous periodicals and books over the years, and I would like to think this list exists in better form, perhaps accompanying a reader/ anthology.

  1. Henry Adams

  2. The Education of Henry Adams
    1918—English


    Agamemnon
    part of The Oresteia; 458 B C—Greek

  3. Aristotle

  4. Politik
    Politics
    Fourth Century B C—Greek



    Nicomachean Ethics
    'On Happiness'; Fourth Century B C—Greek



    De Poetica; Poetics
    'On Tragedy'; Fourth Century B C—Greek


  5. Augustine of Hippo

  6. De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos
    City of God
    426—Latin


    --

    part of the Bible—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

    --

    part of the Bible—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

    --

    part of the Bible—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

    --

    part of the Bible—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

    --

    part of the Bible—Hebrew; Aramaic; Greek

  7. Edmund Burke

  8. Reflections on the Revolution in France
    1790—English

  9. Geoffrey Chaucer

  10. Canterbury Tales
    1478—English

    Anton Chekhov

    'Rothschild's Violin'
    originally published Feb. 1894 in Russkie Vedomosti—Russian


  11. Dâdâ Vanâ

  12. Uncle Vanya
    1897—Russian



    Vom Kriege [excerpted]
    On War
    'What Is War?'; complete work published 1832—German


  13. Joseph Conrad

  14. Heart of Darkness
    originally published serially Feb.-Apr. 1899 in Blackwood's—English


    Inferno
    part of La Divina Commedia; written ca. 1308-21—Italian


    'The Moral Sense of Man and the Lower Animals'
    excerpts from On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man—English

    John Dewey

    'The Virtues'; complete work published 1908


    'Habits and Will'; complete work published 1922

  15. Denis Diderot

  16. Le Neveu de Rameau ou la Satire Seconde
    German traslation, 1805; original, 1823—French

  17. Fyodor Dostoevsky

  18. Zapaski iz Podpol'â
    Notes From Underground
    1864—Russian


    Euripides
  19. Mēdeia

  20. Medea
    431 B C—Greek


  21. Iphigeneia en Aulidi

  22. Iphigeneia in Aulis
    405 B C—Greek



    'Un Cœur Simple'
    part of Trois Contes, 1877—French


    Die Traumdeutung [excerpted]
    The Interpretation of Dreams
    'On Dreams'; complete work published 1899—German


  23. Edward Gibbon

  24. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    originally published in six volumes: first, 1776; second-third, 1781; fourth-sixth, 1788—English


    Faust. Der Tragödie Erster Teil
    first of two volumes of Faust; published in part, 1790; in its entirey, 1808; revised 1829; second volume, Faust. Der Tragödie Zweiter Teil, 1832


    'Šinel''
    'The Overcoat'
    1842—Russian



    The Federalist Papers
    originally published 1787-1788 in the Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser—English


    Historiē [excerpted]
    History
    'The Persian Wars'; Fifth Century B C—Greek


  25. Thomas Hobbes

  26. Leviathan or, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil
    1651—English

  27. Homer

  28. Iliad
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

    David Hume

    'Of Personal Identity'; complete work originally published in three volumes: first-second, 1739; third, 1740—English


    'Of Justice and Injustice'; complete work originally published in two volumes, 1741 and 1742—English

  29. Henry James

  30. The Beast in the Jungle
    originally published in The Better Sort, 1903—English

  31. Franz Kafka

  32. Die Verwandlung
    The Metamorphosis
    originally published 1915 in Die Weißen Blätter—German


    Immanuel Kant

    Critique of Practical Reason
    'Conscience'; complete work published 1788



    Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics
    'First Principles of Morals'; complete work published 1785; revised 1786—German



    Frygt og Baeven [excerpted]
    Fear and Trembling
    'The Knight of Faith'; complete work originally published under the pseudonym, Johannes de Silentio, 1843—Danish



    Second Treatise [second part of Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, the False Principles, and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter Is an Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government]
    complete work originally anonymously published 1689—English

  33. Niccolò Machiavelli

  34. Il Principe
    The Prince
    1532—Italian



    Dalalatul al-Hairin [excerpted]
    Moreh Nevukhim; The Guide for the Perplexed
    'On Evil'; written Twelfth Century; Hebrew version published 1204—Arabic



    Das Kapital, Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie [excerpted]
    'Alienated Labour'; complete work originally published in three volumes: 1867, 1885, and 1894—German

  35. Herman Melville

  36. Billy Budd, Foretopman
    Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)
    1924—English


    John Stuart Mill
  37. On Liberty

  38. 1859—English

  39. Utilitarianism

  40. originally published serially 1861 in Fraser's Magazine—English

  41. Molière

  42. Le Misanthrope ou l'Atrabilaire Amoureux
    The Misanthrope
    1666—French



    Les Essais [excerpted]
    'Of Experience', Book III, Chapter 13; complete work published in three volumes: 1580, 1588, and 1595—French


    De l'Esprit des Lois [excerpted]
    The Spirt of Laws
    'Principles of Government'; complete work originally anonymously published 1748


  43. Friedrich Nietzsche

  44. Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen
    Thus Spake Zarathustra
    originally published in four volumes, 1883-85—German


    Plato
  45. Politeia

  46. The Republic
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek


  47. Symposium

  48. early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  49. Crito

  50. early Fourth Century B C—Greek

  51. Apologia Socratis

  52. The Apology
    early Fourth Century B C—Greek


  53. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  54. Du Contrat Social ou Principes du Droit Politique
    The Social Contract
    1762—French



    Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [excerpted]
    The World as Will and Idea
    'The Indestructibility of Our Inner Nature'; complete work originally published in two volumes, 1819 and 1844—German


    William Shakespeare
  55. Hamlet

  56. 1602—English

  57. Othello

  58. ca. 1604—English

  59. King Lear

  60. 1606—English

  61. Antony and Cleopatra

  62. ca. 1606-08—English

  63. The Tempest

  64. 1611—English

  65. George Bernard Shaw

  66. Caesar and Cleopatra
    1901—English


    Philosophie des Geldes [excerpted]
    'Individual Freedom'; complete work, 1900—German

  67. Adam Smith

  68. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
    1776; revised through third edition, 1784—English

    Sophocles
  69. Antigone
    ca. 441 B C—Greek


  70. Oidipous Tyrannos

  71. Oedipus Rex; Oedipus the King
    ca. 429 B C—Greek


  72. Jonathan Swift

  73. Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships
    Gulliver's Travels
    1726; revised 1735—English



    'Civil Disobedience'
    originally published 1849 in Aesthetic Papers—English

  74. Thucydides

  75. History of the Peloponnesian War
    early Fifth Century B C—Greek


    De la Démocratie en Amérique [excerpted]
    Democracy in America
    'The Power of the Majority'; complete work originally published in two volumes, 1835 and 1840—French


  76. Leo Tolstoy

  77. Smert' Ivana Il'icha
    The Death of Ivan Ilyich
    1886—Russian


  78. Max Weber

  79. Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus
    The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
    1905—German