The Great Books
A Guide to Reading: for Young and Old
3000-500 bc ANCIENT <--(click here for the plots and pictures)
|
AUTHOR |
TITLE |
CENTURY |
PLACE |
|
Traditional Sumerian |
Epic of Gilgamesh |
28th |
Mesopotamia |
|
Sacred Text |
Holy Bible (Old Testament) |
16th-5th |
Levant |
|
Traditional Indian |
Rig-Veda |
14th |
India |
|
Traditional Egyptian |
The Book of the Dead |
13th |
Egypt |
|
Homer |
The Illiad / The Odyssey |
8th |
Greece |
|
Aesop |
Fables |
7th |
Greece |
|
Confucius |
Analects |
6th |
China |
|
Lou Tzu |
Tao Te Ching |
6th |
China |
5th – 3rd Century CLASSICAL GREEK <--(click here for the plots and pictures of the Greek stories)
|
AUTHOR |
TITLE |
CENTURY |
PLACE |
|
Aeschylus |
Seven Against Thebes / Prometheus Bound |
5th |
Greece |
|
Sophocles |
Atigone / Oedipus |
5th |
Greece |
|
Euripides |
Bacchae / Phoenicians / Alcetis |
5th |
Greece |
|
Aristophanes |
Lysistrata / Birds / Clouds / Frogs / Knights |
5th |
Greece |
|
Apollonius of Rhodes |
Argonitica (Jason and the Argonauts) |
5th |
Greece |
|
Herodotus |
The Persian Wars |
5th |
Greece |
|
Thucydidies |
The Peloponnesian Wars |
5th |
Greece |
|
Plato |
Phado / Republic / Crito / Apology / Sym / Laws |
4th |
Greece |
|
Aristotle |
Treatise Gov / Metaphys / Ethics / Politics / Nico |
4th |
Greece |
|
Euclid |
The Elements of Geometry |
4th |
Greece |
|
Sun Tzu |
The Art of War |
4th |
China |
|
Archimedes |
The Works |
3rd |
Sicily |
2nd – 5th Century CLASSICAL ROMAN <--(click here for the plots and pictures of the Roman stories)
|
Traditional Asian |
The Buddhist Scriptures |
3rd |
India |
|
Ptolemy |
Geocentric Astronomy |
2nd |
Egypt |
|
Cicero |
On the Good Life |
1st BC |
Italy |
|
Virgil |
Aeneid |
1st BC |
Italy |
|
Lucretius |
On the Nature of Things |
1st BC |
Italy |
|
Ovid |
Metamorpheses |
1st BC |
Italy |
|
Julius Caesar |
Commentaries on the Gallic Wars |
1st BC |
Italy |
|
Sacred Text |
The Holy Bible (New Testament) |
1st AD |
Levant |
|
Livius |
The War with Hannibal |
1st AD |
Italy |
|
Galen |
On the Natural Faculties |
2nd |
Italy |
|
Juevenal |
The Sixteen Satires |
2nd |
Italy |
|
Marcus Aurelius |
Meditations |
2nd |
Italy |
|
Saint Augustine |
City of God |
5th |
Italy |
|
Traditional Jewish |
The Talmud |
5th |
Mesopotamia |
6th-14th Century MEDIEVAL <--(click here for the plots and pictures of the Medieval stories)
|
The Venerable Bede |
History of the English People |
7th |
England |
|
Traditional Muslim |
The Koran |
7th |
Arabia |
|
Traditional Scandinavian |
Beowulf (Saga?) |
8th |
Norway |
|
Traditional Arabian |
1001 Arabian Nights |
9th |
Arabia |
|
Traditional French |
Song of Roland |
11th |
France |
|
Traditional Spanish |
El Cid |
12th |
Spain |
|
Traditional Jewish |
The Kabbalah |
12th |
Spain / North Africa |
|
Maimonidies |
For the Confused |
12th |
Egypt |
|
Pierre Abelard |
Letters and History |
12th |
France |
|
Saint Thomas Aquinas |
Summe Theologica |
13th |
Italy |
|
Traditional German |
Nibelungenlied |
13th |
Germany |
|
Marco Polo |
The Travels of Marco Polo |
13th |
Italy |
|
Dante Aligheri |
The Divine Comedy |
13th |
Italy |
|
Geoffery Chaucer |
The Canterbury Tales |
14th |
England |
15th –16th Century RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION
|
Francesco Petrarch |
Dialogues |
14th |
Italy |
|
Giovanni Boccaccio |
The Dacameron |
14th |
Italy |
|
Saint Thomas More |
Utopia |
16th |
England |
|
Leonardo Di Vinci |
Notebooks |
16th |
Italy |
|
Nicholas Copernicus |
On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres |
16th |
Poland |
|
Baldassaire Castiglione |
The Courtier |
16th |
Italy |
|
Martin Luther |
Ninety Five Theses |
16th |
Germany |
|
Niccolo Machiavelli |
The Prince |
16th |
Italy |
|
John Calvin |
Institutes of the Christian Religion |
16th |
Switzerland |
|
Wu Ch'eng-en |
Journey to the West |
16th |
China |
|
Desiderius Erasmus |
In Praise of Folly |
16th |
Holland |
|
Francois Rabelais |
Gargandua and Paterguea |
16th |
France |
|
Montaigne |
The Essays |
16th |
France |
|
Jan Kochanowski |
Lamentations |
16th |
Poland |
17th Century ELIZABETHAN AND BAROQUE
|
Johannes Kepler |
The Harmony of the Worlds |
17th |
Germany |
|
Galileo Galilei |
Discoveries and Opinions |
17th |
Italy |
|
William Shakespeare |
Complete Works |
17th |
England |
|
Sir Francis Bacon |
Essays |
17th |
England |
|
Thomas Hobbes |
Leviathan |
17th |
Switzerland |
|
Rene Descartes |
A Discourse on Method |
17th |
France |
|
John Milton |
Paradise Lost |
17th |
England |
|
John Bunyan |
The Pilgrims' Progress |
17th |
England |
|
Jean de la Fontaine |
Fables |
17th |
France |
|
Moliere |
The Misanthrope |
17th |
France |
|
William Forbush |
The Book of Martyrs |
17th |
England |
|
Barch Spinoza |
Ethics |
17th |
Holland |
|
Blaise Pascal |
The Pensees |
17th |
France |
|
Miguel Cervantes |
Don Quixote |
17th |
Spain |
|
Christian Huygens |
A Treatise on Light |
17th |
Holland |
|
John Locke |
Treatise on Government |
17th |
England |
18th Century ENLIGHTENMENT and THE AGE OF REVOLUTION
|
Baron de Montesquieu |
The Spirit of the Laws |
18th |
France |
|
Voltaire |
Candide |
18th |
France |
|
Daniel DeFoe |
Robinson Carusoe |
18th |
England |
|
Johnathan Swift |
Gulliver's Travels |
18th |
Ireland |
|
Captain James Cook |
Journal of Voyages |
18th |
England |
|
Issac Newton |
Principles of Gravity |
18th |
England |
|
David Hume |
Treatise on Human Nature |
18th |
Scotland |
|
Jean Jacques Rousseau |
Emile / The Social Contract |
18th |
Switzerland |
|
Denis Diderot |
The Encyclopedia |
18th |
France |
|
Sir William Blackstone |
The Rights of Englishmen |
18th |
England |
|
Edward Gibbon |
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |
18th |
England |
|
Immanuel Kant |
A Critique of Pure Reason |
18th |
Germany |
|
Edmund Burke |
Inquiries into the Sublime and Beautiful / Reflections |
18th |
Ireland |
|
Adam Smith |
The Wealth of Nations |
18th |
Scotland |
|
Thomas Paine |
Common Sense / The Rights of Man |
18th |
United States |
|
The American Founding Fathers |
The Declaration / Constitution / Federalist Papers |
18th |
United States |
|
Sir Thomas Malthus |
Essay on Population |
18th |
England |
19th CENTURY: THE ROMANTIC AGE
|
Various |
The New England Primer |
19th |
The United States |
|
Washinton Irving |
Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
19th |
The United States |
|
James Fenimore Cooper |
Last of the Mohecians |
19th |
The United States |
|
Nathaniel Hawthorne |
The Scarlet Letter |
19th |
The United States |
|
Henry W. Longfellow |
Poetry |
19th |
The United States |
|
Edgar Allen Poe |
Poetry |
19th |
The United States |
|
Herman Melville |
Moby Dick / Bartleby |
19th |
The United States |
|
Walt Whitman |
Leaves of Grass |
19th |
The United States |
|
William McGuffey |
The Eclectic Primer |
19th |
The United States |
|
Francis Parkman |
The Oregon Trail |
19th |
The United States |
|
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
The Conduct of Life |
19th |
The United States |
|
Henry David Thoreau |
Walden / Essay on Civil Disobedience |
19th |
The United States |
|
Mark Twain |
Tom Sawyer / Huck Finn / Innocents Abroad |
19th |
The United States |
|
Lew Wallace |
Ben Hur |
20th |
The United States |
|
Edward Bellamy |
Looking Backwards |
19th |
The United States |
|
Ignatius Donnelly |
Caesar's Column |
19th |
The United States |
|
Sir Thomas Bulfinch |
The Age of Fable |
19th |
The United States |
|
Stephen Crane |
The Red Badge of Courage |
19th |
The United States |
|
Henry Adams |
The Education of Henry Adams |
19th |
The United States |
|
William James |
Essays in Radical Empiricism |
19th |
The United States |
|
Sir William Bligh |
Mutiny on the Bounty |
19th |
England |
|
Sir Walter Scott |
Ivanhoe / Rob Roy |
19th |
Scotland |
|
George Lord Byron |
Don Juan / Poems |
19th |
England |
|
Mary Shelley |
Frankenstein |
19th |
England |
|
John Stewart Mill |
On Liberty / Utilitarianism |
19th |
England |
|
Alfred Lord Tennyson |
Idylls of the King |
19th |
England |
|
Charles Darwin |
The Origin of Species |
19th |
England |
|
Sir Edward Creasy |
The Fifteen Dicisive Battles of World History |
19th |
England |
|
Jane Austen |
Pride and Prejudice |
19th |
England |
|
William M. Thackeray |
Vanity Fair |
19th |
England |
|
Rudyard Kipling |
The Jungle Book / Kim / The Man who would be King |
19th |
India / England |
|
Charles Dickens |
Tale of Two Cities / Great Expectations / Christmas Carol |
19th |
England |
|
Charlotte Bonte |
Jane Eyre |
19th |
England |
|
Lewis Carroll |
Alice in Wonderland |
19th |
England |
|
Robert L. Stevenson |
Treasure Island / Black Arrow |
19th |
Scotland |
|
Bram Stoker |
Dracula |
19th |
Ireland |
FRENCH, LATIN AND GERMANIC AUTHORS
|
Stendhal |
The Red and the Black |
19th |
France |
|
Alexis de Toqueville |
Democracy in America |
19th |
France |
|
Carl Maria Von Clauswitz |
On War |
19th |
Germany |
|
Wolfgang Von Goethe |
Faust |
19th |
Germany |
|
Hegel |
A Philosophy of Rationalism |
19th |
Germany |
|
Jules Verne |
20,000 Leagues / Around the World / Earth to Moon |
19th |
France |
|
Kark Marx |
The Communist Manifesto |
19th |
Germany |
|
The Brother Grimm |
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
19th |
Germany |
|
Honore de Balzac |
The Human Comedy |
19th |
France |
|
Hans Christian Anderson |
Fairy Tales |
19th |
Denmark |
|
Victor Hugo |
Les Miserables |
19th |
Fance |
|
Alexander Dumas |
Count of Monte Christo / The Three Musketeers |
19th |
France |
|
Soren Kierkgaard |
Either, Or |
19th |
Denmark |
|
Henrik Ibsen |
Peer Gynt |
19th |
Norway |
|
Neitzche |
The Geneology of Morals / Thus Spake Zarathustra |
19th |
Germany |
|
Gustave Flaubert |
Madame Bovary |
19th |
France |
|
Emile Zola |
Germinal |
19th |
France |
|
Edmund Rostand |
Cyrano de Bergerac |
19th |
France |
|
Alexander Pushkin |
Boris Godunov / Eugene Onegin |
19th |
Russia |
|
Adam Mickiewicz |
Pan Tadeusz |
19th |
Poland |
|
Nokolai Gogol |
Taras Bulba |
19th |
Russia |
|
Ivan Turgenev |
Fathers and Sons |
19th |
Russia |
|
Julius Slowacki |
Anhelli |
19th |
Poland |
|
Zygmunt Krasinski |
The Undivine Comedy |
19th |
Poland |
|
Janos Arany |
Toldi |
19th |
Hungary |
|
Feodor Dostoyevsky |
Brothers Karamazov / Crime and Punishment |
19th |
Russia |
|
Sandor Petofi |
Poems |
19th |
Hungary |
|
Leo Tolstoy |
War and Peace / Anna Karenena |
19th |
Russia |
|
Boleslaw Prus |
The Doll |
19th |
Poland |
|
Henryk Sienkiewicz |
Quo Vadis / With Fire and Sword |
19th |
Poland |
|
Anton Chekhov |
Three Sisters / Plays |
19th |
Russia |
AFRICAN, ASIAN AND NATIVE AMERICAN WRITINGS
|
Traditional African |
Folktales |
19th |
Africa |
|
Traditional African |
In the Back of the Black Man's Mind |
19th |
Africa |
|
Traditional American Indian |
Indians |
19th |
North America |
|
Traditional American Indian |
Soul of the Indian |
19th |
North America |
|
Traditional American Indian |
Mexico and Peru |
19th |
Latin America |
20th CENTURY: THE MODERN AGE
|
Henry Adams |
Education of Henry Adams |
20th |
The United States |
|
Margaret Mitchell |
Gone with the Wind |
20th |
The United States |
|
Jack London |
Call of the Wild / White Fang |
20th |
The United States |
|
Upton Sinclair |
The Jungle |
20th |
The United States |
|
F. Scott Fitzgerald |
The Great Gatsby |
20th |
The United States |
|
Robert Goddard |
A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes |
20th |
The United States |
|
Robert Frost |
Poems |
20th |
The United States |
|
William Faulkner |
As I Lay Dying, Absalom! |
20th |
The United States |
|
Earnest Hemingway |
Old Man and the Sea / For Whom the Bell Tolls |
20th |
The United States |
|
John Steinbeck |
The Grapes of Wrath / Of Mice and Men |
20th |
The United States |
|
Ayn Rand |
Anthem / The Fountainhead / Atlas Shrugged |
20th |
Russia / USA |
|
JD Salinger |
Catcher in the Rye |
20th |
The United States |
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
Breakfast of Champions |
20th |
The United States |
|
Jack Kerouac |
On the Road |
20th |
The United States |
|
Norman Mailer |
The Naked and the Dead |
20th |
The United States |
|
Truman Capote |
In Cold Blood |
20th |
The United States |
|
Robert Heinlen |
Stranger in a Strange Land |
20th |
The United States |
|
Frank Herbert |
Dune |
20th |
The United States |
|
Joseph Heller |
Catch - 22 |
20th |
The United States |
|
Stephen King |
The Stand |
20th |
The United States |
|
AE Van Vogt |
Destination Universe |
20th |
Canada |
|
James A. Michener |
The Source / Covenant |
20th |
The United States |
|
Saul Bellow |
Herzog / Ravelstein |
20th |
The United States |
|
Ray Bradbury |
Farenheit 451 |
20th |
The United States |
|
Tom Clancy |
The Hunt for Red October |
20th |
The United States |
|
Michael Crichton |
Jurassic Park / The Lost World |
20th |
The United States |
|
CS Lewis |
Narnia / Abolition / Discarded Image |
20th |
Ireland |
|
George Bernard Shaw |
Man and Superman / Saint Joan |
20th |
Ireland |
|
Joseph Conrad |
Heart of Darkness / Nostromo / Lord Jim |
20th |
England |
|
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |
The Lost World / Sherlock Holmes |
20th |
Scotland |
|
HG Wells |
War of the Worlds / The Time Machine |
20th |
England |
|
EM Forester |
A Passage to India / Howard's End |
20th |
England |
|
Samuel Beckett |
Waiting for Godot |
20th |
Ireland |
|
James Joyce |
Portrait of the Artist / Ulysses |
20th |
Ireland |
|
JRR Tolkien |
The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings |
20th |
England |
|
Alodus Huxley |
Brave New World |
20th |
England |
|
George Orwell |
1984 / Animal Farm / Down and Out |
20th |
India / England |
|
Arthur Koestler |
Darkness at Noon |
20th |
Hungary / England |
|
Ian Fleming |
James Bond |
20th |
England |
|
Anthony Burgess |
A Clockwork Orange |
20th |
England |
|
TS Eliot |
The Wasteland / Selected Essays |
20th |
USA / England |
|
JRR Tolkien |
Lord of the Rings |
20th |
USA / England |
|
Sir William Golding |
The Lord of the Flies |
20th |
England |
|
Arthur C. Clarke |
2001: A Space Odyssey |
20th |
England |
|
Douglas Adams |
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
20th |
England |
FRENCH, LATIN AND GERMANIC AUTHORS
|
Erich Maria Remarque |
All Quiet on the Western Front |
10s |
Germany |
|
Hermann Oberth |
By Rocket into Interplanetary Space |
20s |
Germany |
|
Anne Frank |
The Diary of Anne Frank |
40s |
Holland |
|
Umberto Eco |
The Name of the Rose |
20th |
Italy |
|
Knut Hamsun |
Growth of the Soil |
20th |
Norway |
|
Johann Wyss |
The Swiss Family Robinson |
20th |
Switzerland |
|
Herman Hesse |
Siddhartha |
20th |
Germany |
|
Jean Raspail |
Camp of the Saints |
70s |
France |
|
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky |
The Exploration of Cosmic Space |
00s |
The United States |
|
Wladyslaw Reymont |
The Peasants |
20s |
Poland |
|
Sefan Zeromski |
Ashes |
20s |
Poland |
|
Jerzy Kosinski |
The Painted Bird |
20th |
Poland |
|
Franz Kafka |
The Trial |
20th |
Czechoslovakia |
|
Maxim Gorky |
Lower Depths |
20th |
Russia |
|
Boris Pasternak |
Dr. Zhivago |
20th |
Russia |
|
Czeslaw Milosz |
The Captive Mind |
20th |
Poland |
|
Alexander Solzhenitsyn |
The Gulag Archipelago / One Day |
70s |
Russia |
|
Stanislaw Lem |
Solaris |
20th |
Poland |
|
Vladimir Nabakov |
Pale Fire / Lectures |
20th |
Russia |
|
Elie Wiesel |
Night |
20th |
Romania |
Being able to read and write may constitute raw literacy, but perhaps only the rankest pop-education ideologue will concede that this is where it should end. Readings telos is not the facilitation of mass-consumerism. In Post-Industrial America, we may know how to read, but we are steadily losing the reason that reading is important: as a tool for Cultural Literacy and a greater sense of purpose in our lives. To remedy this, this list was generated.
Now, search for ANY book that EVER existed with the world's best booksearch engine!
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