Harvard Classics

The Harvard Classics

Volumes 1-10 of The Harvard Classics (Southwark edition)
Editor	Charles W. Eliot
Original title	Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf
Publisher	P. F. Collier & Son
Publication date	1909 (First 25 volumes), 1910 (Next 25 volumes), 1914 (Lectures), 1916 (Reading Guide)

The Harvard Classics, originally marketed as Dr. Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf of Books, is a 50-volume series of classic works of world literature, important speeches, and historical documents compiled and edited by Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot.^[1][2] Eliot believed that a careful reading of the series and following the eleven reading plans included in Volume 50 would offer a reader, in the comfort of the home, the benefits of a liberal education, entertainment and counsel of history's greatest creative minds.^[3] The initial success of The Harvard Classics was due, in part, to the branding offered by Eliot and Harvard University. Buyers of these sets were apparently attracted to Eliot's claims. The General Index contains upwards of 76,000 subject references.^[4][5][6]

The first 25 volumes were published in 1909 followed by the next 25 volumes in 1910. The collection was enhanced when the Lectures on The Harvard Classics was added in 1914 and Fifteen Minutes a Day - The Reading Guide in 1916.^[7] The Lectures on The Harvard Classics was edited by Willam A. Neilson, who had assisted Eliot in the selection and design of the works in Volumes 1–49.^[8] Neilson also wrote the introductions and notes for the selections in Volumes 1–49.^[3] The Harvard Classics is often described as a "51 volume" set, however, P.F. Collier & Son consistently marketed the Harvard Classics as 50 volumes plus Lectures and a Daily Reading Guide. Both The Harvard Classics and The Five-Foot Shelf of Books are registered trademarks of P.F. Collier & Son for a series of books used since 1909.^[9][10]

Collier advertised The Harvard Classics in U.S. magazines including Collier's and McClure's, offering to send a pamphlet to prospective buyers. The pamphlet, entitled Fifteen Minutes a Day - A Reading Plan, is a 64-page booklet that describes the benefits of reading, gives the background on the book series, and includes many statements by Eliot about why he undertook the project. In the pamphlet, Eliot states:^[11]

My aim was not to select the best fifty, or best hundred, books in the world, but to give, in twenty-three thousand pages or thereabouts, a picture of the progress of the human race within historical times, so far as that progress can be depicted in books. The purpose of The Harvard Classics is, therefore, one different from that of collections in which the editor's aim has been to select a number of best books; it is nothing less than the purpose to present so ample and characteristic a record of the stream of the world's thought that the observant reader's mind shall be enriched, refined and fertilized. Within the limits of fifty volumes, containing about twenty-three thousand pages, my task was to provide the means of obtaining such knowledge of ancient and modern literature as seemed essential to the twentieth-century idea of a cultivated man. The best acquisition of a cultivated man is a liberal frame of mind or way of thinking; but there must be added to that possession acquaintance with the prodigious store of recorded discoveries, experiences, and reflections which humanity in its intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization has acquired and laid up.

The idea of the Harvard Classics was presented in speeches by then President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University.^[1] Several years prior to 1909, Eliot gave a speech in which he remarked that a three-foot shelf would be sufficient to hold enough books to give a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion. He was inundated with requests for the list of those book titles that would fill the three-foot shelf. After many attempts to support his initial claim, he decided that the shelf would need to be lengthened to five feet - but a definitive list of works was not declared. A well-known publisher, Peter Fenelon Collier and his son, Robert J. Collier, saw a financial opportunity and asked that Eliot make good on his statement by selecting 50 volumes (400 to 500 pages each). Collier representatives proposed the name for the series as either "The Harvard Library" or "The Harvard Classics" pending approval by Harvard University. The proposal, presented to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, was unanimously approved as a useful undertaking from an educational point of view.^[1]

In February 1909 with his approaching retirement as President of Harvard University, Eliot accepted the proposal of P.F. Collier & Son.^[3] The agreement allowed Eliot to engage an assistant. He chose William A. Neilson, Professor of English at Harvard University. The English Bible was excluded because Eliot and Neilson felt that almost every household would already possess at least one copy. The contributions of living authors (other than scientific contributions) were excluded because Eliot and Neilson considered the "verdict of the educated world" was not yet final. Works of modern fiction were felt to be readily accessible and thus excluded. English and American literature as well as documents related to American social and political ideas were more likely to be selected because the Harvard Classics were intended primarily for American readers.

Eliot retired as President of Harvard University in May 1909 and devoted much of the next year to organizing the 50 volumes and selecting the list of included works. The first half of the included works was provided to P.F. Collier & Son in 1909. However, Eliot and Neilson did not make the remaining selections, write the introductions for each selection, or finish the general index until 1910. Consequently, P.F. Collier & Son printed volumes 1 to 25 in 1909 and volumes 26 to 50 in 1910.^[7] An advertisement for The Harvard Classics appeared in Collier's on April 30, 1909, stating the "Complete Official Contents Now Ready."^[12] With the help of more than 50 Harvard professors and instructors and the general library of Harvard University and its department libraries, Eliot and Neilson believed that the title "The Harvard Classics" was well deserved.^[1]

In a June 1909 issue of Collier's Weekly, P.F. Collier & Son announced it would publish a series of books selected by Eliot, without disclosing the list of included works, that would be approximately five feet in length and would supply the readers a liberal education. A few days after the announced intent to publish Dr. Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf of Books, several newspapers published an incomplete list of selected works to be included. Eliot felt the publications were unauthorized and asked Collier's Weekly publishers to publish his letter to the editors explaining the initial list and selection process in the July 24, 1909, edition of Collier's. Eliot describes his goal in helping publish The Harvard Classics as motivated by an educational purpose and he explains why the English Bible was not selected. In January 1910, P.F. Collier & Son announced in a "Publishers' Statement" that the 50 volumes were almost complete and offered a "Statement from the Editor" (Eliot) describing the origins of process resulting in the first sets of The Harvard Classics. The first editions printed by P.F. Collier & Son in three separate styles of bindings were first offered for sale on October 13, 1909.^[7]

The collection was marketed so as to advertise in all the principal magazines published in the United States resulting in a combined circulation of almost 3,000,000 for the initial marketing effort. The sales were initiated using 3,000 agents who were supplied a prospectus or "Announcement of The Harvard Classics" so that leads could be followed up by the agents.^[7] Most advertisements encouraged an interest notice be mailed back to the publisher offering a targeted and highly successful marketing campaign for the series. The intent by the publisher was to offer The Harvard Classics as a subscription with only some of the volumes being sent initially and the remaining to follow in subsequent shipment. This was strategic since the complete 50 volumes had not yet been supplied by Eliot and Neilson to the publisher and would not be supplied until late in 1910.^[7]

Volumes 1-49 of The Harvard Classics include reprints of hundreds of authors' works that may have been in the public domain (e.g., because of expired copyrights) or covered by existing copyright holders such as other publishing companies. In either case, Collier filed copyrights for the 49 volumes and for The Harvard Classics complete series in 1909^[13] and 1910^[14] and obtained, when necessary, permission to reprint selected works included in one of the 49 volumes. Collier's copyrighted Volume 50 was in 1910, the Lectures on The Harvard Classics in 1914,^[15] and Fifteen Minutes a Day - The Reading Guide in 1916.^[16]

P.F. Collier & Son asserts in many early adverstisements of The Harvard Classics that 20,000 sets of The Harvard Classics were first printed to offer a "tremendous savings" to buyers and that these first printings include the word "Eliot" as a watermark on every page.^[10] To help the chronological obsession about the print runs of The Harvard Classics, clues regarding how many of first edition printings are offered in a trademark dispute case between P.F. Collier and E. Milton Jones in 1909 that was later ruled on in appeal in 1910 (in favor of P.F. Collier & Son).^[7] In testimony, Robert J. Collier states that the first sets of The Harvard Classics printed and sold were "bound in full morocco...one set, bound in three-quarters morocco...and the remaining set, bound in buckram...".^[7] Advertisements in 1910 also state Collier prepared editions for those who demand luxurious limited editions as well as for the readers who want less expensive sets.^[10]

The first editions of The Harvard Classics were known as "De Luxe" sets. Most were limited-quantity print runs and some "autographed" editions (only Volume 1 is autographed) include signatures by Eliot and in some cases Robert J. Collier. The first print runs in 1909 were for volumes 1 to 25. Another print run was needed in 1910 for volumes 26 to 50 because those volumes were not selected and edited by Eliot until the middle of 1910. The first editions include Japanese vellum paper with "Eliot" watermarks (made by S.D. Warren & Co. of Boston), deckled pages, silk moire endpapers, sewn in bookmarks, and top edged gilt pages.^[7] Each was appealing to buyers for the elaborate illustrations, frontispieces, plates, portraits, facsimiles, and crimson silk page markers (features unlikely to be found in later printings).^[6] The colophon found on the ultimate page of content of first editions notes these sets were "planned and designed by William Patten" (the Book Manager at P.F. Collier & Son).^[7]

The exact numbers of each of the three bindings making up the 20,000 first sets are unclear. Four different sets in full morocco leather were printed with raised bands, Harvard University insignia, and volume names in gilt lettering on the spines. The four variations in full leather include: (1) the "Alumni Autograph Edition" limited to 200 numbered sets (Volume 1 is autographed by Eliot), (2) the "Eliot Edition" limited to 1,000 numbered sets (Volume 1 is autographed by Eliot), (3) the "Alumni Edition De Luxe" (unsigned) limited to 1,000 numbered sets, and (4) the "Edition De Luxe" sets that are numbered and stated as being limited editions (but the number printed is not shown). The full morocco sets sold for at least $345.^[7] The Edition De Luxe sets in full morocco leather were sold many years (after the limited-quantity runs were sold out) as some include the "Lecture" volume added in 1914.

The second binding type of the first editions of The Harvard Classics were printed in three-quarters morocco leather binding over cloth boards. The first edition three-quarters morocco leather sets have similar variations as the full morocco leather sets including a (1) set limited to 1,000 numbered and autographed "Cambridge Editions" signed by Eliot and, interestingly, the publisher Robert J. Collier also signed the sets numbered from 412 to 973 over mottled cream boards, (2) set limited to 1,000 numbered and autographed "Eliot Edition" books over green cloth boards, and (3) a set limited to 1,000 (unsigned) called the "Alumni Edition" on the spine bound over crimson boards, and (4) a set of unknown number called the "Library Edition" (stated as limited edition, but number of printings is not shown) over crimson boards. The "Library Editions" do not paper with "Eliot" watermarks, but appear to have the same high-quality Japanese vellum paper. Each of these limited-quantity three-quarter morocco sets sold for $195.^[7]

The third type of binding of the first editions of The Harvard Classics were printed in fine buckram (green and crimson). The green buckram set of "Alumni Edition" printings is a numbered set limited to 1,000 numbered copies. The green buckram has gilt lettering with crimson and gold Harvard insignia on both the spine and front board. The first editions show "Alumni Edition De Luxe" are numbered and limited to 1,000 sets and include embossed bands on the spine. The remaining first edition set of The Harvard Classics, printed in fine crimson buckram cloth, is another version called the "Eliot Edition" - a limited quantity printing of 1,000. The crimson buckram "Eliot Edition" with Eliot's signature on the front board is printed with raised bands on the spine, "Eliot" watermarked pages, and include illustrations, frontispieces, plates, portraits, and facsimiles. This set does not include page markers. Both buckram first edition sets sold for $100.^[7] Another set almost identical to the limited-quantity green buckram sets, is also in green buckram and has "Alumni Edition" on the spine. This set was sold for many years and was limited to 10,000 printings. These second print runs of this set are almost identical to the first editions except the pastedown papers have much more faint printings, the limited edition page shows the editions as "Edition De Luxe," and watermarked "Eliot" pages are not included.

In 1910, Collier began printing The Harvard Classics in a limited quantity set called the Renaissance edition. This beautifully bound set includes 10 different bindings consisting of reproductions of the artistic bindings of Royal Monarchs of Europe from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Collier also began printing the National (1910) and Popular (1912) editions with lower price points in an effort, claimed by Collier in many advertisements, to honor the wishes of Eliot that The Harvard Classics are priced within everybody's reach.^[17] An extremely popular crimson-colored silk cloth set similar to the look of the De Luxe Morocco edition began printing in 1914 and was called the Cambridge edition. Variations of the Cambridge edition were printed for over a decade in cloth over hardboards and later (after 1919) in an imitation leather binding material called fabrikoid.

In 1919 Collier announced a new binding material for The Harvard Classic sets with the printing of a new set called the Southwark edition (in flexible dark green fabrikoid or imitation leather). The first set of the Southwark edition was printed in July 1919 and given to the Du Pont company. The set carries an inscription "This is the first set of Harvard Classics published by P.F. Collier & Son Company to be bound in DuPont Fabrikoid...".^[18] The set was named after the birthplace of one of the founders of Harvard College, John Harvard, who was born in London Borough of Southwark. The set is often referred to as the "Veritas" edition; however, the "Veritas" edition is bound in a dark crimson color promoted by DuPont. The new binding material, called fabrikoid, offered less weight, flexible boards, and bindings that were more durable than the cloth or leather bindings of the early editions. Fabrikoid bindings were used in editions published from the 1920s to 1950's such as the varicolored Gemston edition which has five different colors of bindings and for larger editions with increased font sizes called the (home) Library editions that were marketed as being easier to read.

The "Eliot Foundation of Adult Education" set, which appears to have been first printed around 1932 (based on included educational materials dated 1932 and later), is a rare numbered set bound in dark blue pebbled cloth. This set has gold gilt lettering with a profile of Eliot on the spine. The set was the focus of a set of materials for adult education with syllabi, instructions for study, and classroom discussions points. The set has an embossed symbol used in many of the education materials developed by the Eliot Foundation on the front board with Versitas Scientia Humanitas (trans. trust, knowledge, and culture). The number of printings of this rare set is unknown. Later editions (with names such as Gemstone, Deluxe Registered, Veritas, Home Library, and Great Literature editions) were not quite as unique as price points were further lowered to make the Harvard Classics more affordable. These later editions were printed in various sizes and binding materials such as cloth, fabrikoid, bonded leather, and even later in various types of imitation and genuine leather often printed to imitate earlier editions.

P.F. Collier & Son printed the 50th edition (that is, different set) of The Harvard Classics in 1956. Owners and prospective buyers of The Harvard Classics editions are often interested in the printing year of a particular edition. As mentioned before, not even the first editions were fully printed in 1909. First editions were printed in 1909 and 1910, and all subsequent editions were printed in 1910 or later. A printer's key could be used to describe the print run, but these were not used in the U.S. until the middle of the twentieth century. Copyright dates for book reprints are unlikely to identify the year of printing excepts for first four editions. For The Harvard Classics series, copyright pages of The Harvard Classics have no information about the printing year (or run) until 1956 when the publisher began including information about the year of the print run.

Collier's renewed the copyrights for The Harvard Classics 28 years after filing the first copyrights for The Harvard Classics (as was customary at the time, as it offered some legal advantages) in 1936 and 1937. Coliier's again renewed the copyrights in 1956 and 1959, and several times in the sixties as editions were printed in different page sizes and fonts (resulting is different pagination than described in initial copyright filings) and because some editions were printed and sold with fewer than 50 volumes. In sum, copyright dates of The Harvard Classics editions offer misleading information about the printing date or printing year after the first editions were printed in 1909 and 1910. For example, print runs following the publications of the first editions and until 1937 include copyrights dates of 1909 or 1910 although the printing year could be over 20 years later (or more).

Some clues about the printing history can help identify the print run year. For example, the inclusion of the "Lectures" began in 1914. Additionally, the "Editor's Introduction" in volume 50 includes a second "Editor's Introduction" that is dated in 1917. Fabrikoid was first used as binding for The Harvard Classics in 1919. Lastly, the publishing company marketed a larger size of books with the Home Library edition. This set of The Harvard Classics and subsequent editions are 15 percent larger than previous editions. None of these clues allow for an exact printing year, but each can be used to establish that the printing could not have occurred before a certain year, and of course, the printing cannot have occurred before the most recent copyright date.

The last edition of The Harvard Classics printed by P.F. Collier & Son (then a subsidiary of Crowell Collier & Macmillan, Inc.) was the 63rd printing in 1970 of a 22-volume called the "Great Literature Edition" in green fibrated (essentially bonded) leather with 22K decor that sold for $3.78 per volume ($1 each for the first three volumes). The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in 1972 against Crowell Collier for deceptive selling practices of The Harvard Classics.^[19] In a statement responding to the complaint, Crowell Collier stated that it no longer sells The Harvard Classics.^[19] On March 24, 1973, the FTC provisionally accepted a consent order from Crowell Collier (now called Crowell, Collier and MacMillan, Inc.) that the publisher would stop trying to sell The Harvard Classics in one bulk shipment. The publisher ended the subscription plan used since 1909 and stated that it had no plans to sell The Harvard Classics one book at a time.^[20]

As Adam Kirsch, writing for Harvard magazine in 2001, notes, "It is surprisingly easy, even today, to find a complete set of the Harvard Classics in good condition. At least one is usually for sale on eBay, the Internet auction site, for $300 or so, a bargain at $6 a book. The supply, from attics or private libraries around the country, seems endless — a tribute to the success of the publisher, P.F. Collier, who sold some 350,000 sets within 20 years of the series' initial publication".^[2]

The Five-Foot Shelf, with its introductions, notes, guides to reading, and exhaustive indexes, may claim to constitute a reading course unparalleled in comprehensiveness and authority.

— Notes on the Lectures by William Allan Neilson

The main function of the collection should be to develop and foster in many thousands of people a taste for serious reading of the highest quality, outside of The Harvard Classics as well as within them.

— Charles W. Eliot^[21]

Eliot and Neilson concluded that the 50 volumes were "so far as possible, entire works or complete segments of the world's written legacies" for English speaking readers.^[22]

• The concept of education through systematic reading of seminal works themselves (rather than textbooks) was carried on by John Erskine at Columbia University, and in the 1930s Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins at the University of Chicago carried this idea further with the concepts of education through study of the "great books" and "great ideas" of Western civilization. This led to the publication in 1952 of Great Books of the Western World, which is still in print and actively marketed. In 1937, under Stringfellow Barr, St. John's College introduced a curriculum based on the direct study of "great books". These sets are popular today with those interested in homeschooling.
• Gateway to the Great Books^[23] was designed as an introduction to the Great Books of the Western World, published by the same organization and editors in 1952.
• Palgrave's The Golden Treasury^[23] is a popular anthology of English poetry, originally selected for publication by Francis Turner Palgrave in 1861.
• The Oxford Book of English Verse^[23] is an anthology of English poetry that had a very substantial influence on popular taste and perception of poetry for at least a generation.
• The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books, today published by Harvard University Press, which presents important works of ancient Greek and Latin literature in a way designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience.
• Sacred Books of the East is a 50-volume set of English translations of Asian religious writings published by the Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910. It incorporates the essential sacred texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and Islam.
• The Delphian Society created the 10 Volume Delphian Course of Reading—with the Harvard Classics editor Eliot in mind—for young and developing minds.^[24]
• The Everyman's Library is a series of reprints of classic literature, primarily from the Western canon.
• The Thinker's Library is a selection of essays, literature, and extracts from greater works by various classical and contemporary humanists and rationalists, continuing in the tradition of the Renaissance that were published between 1929 and 1951 for the Rationalist Press Association by Watts & Co., London, a company founded by Charles Albert Watts.

The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction is a supplement of 20 volumes of modern fiction added in 1917. Items were selected for inclusion by Charles W. Eliot, with notes and introductions by William Allan Neilson.

• Vol. 1. HENRY FIELDING 1
  • The History of Tom Jones, part 1, by Henry Fielding
• Vol. 2. HENRY FIELDING 2
  • The History of Tom Jones, part 2, by Henry Fielding
• Vol. 3. LAURENCE STERN, JANE AUSTEN
  • A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne
  • Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
• Vol. 4. SIR WALTER SCOTT
  • Guy Mannering, by Sir Walter Scott
• Vol. 5. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 1
  • Vanity Fair, part 1, by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Vol. 6. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 2
  • Vanity Fair, part 2, by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Vol. 7. CHARLES DICKENS 1
  • David Copperfield, part 1, by Charles Dickens
• Vol. 8. CHARLES DICKENS 2
  • David Copperfield, part 2, by Charles Dickens
• Vol. 9. GEORGE ELIOT
  • The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
• Vol. 10. HAWTHORNE, IRVING, POE, BRET HARTE, MARK TWAIN, HALE
  • The Scarlet Letter and "Rappaccini's Daughter", by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • '"Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", by Washington Irving
  • "Eleonora", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Purloined Letter", by Edgar Allan Poe
  • "The Luck of Roaring Camp", "The Outcasts of Poker Flat", and The Idyl of Red Gulch, by Francis Bret Harte
  • "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog", by Samuel L. Clemens
  • The Man Without a Country, by Edward Everett Hale
• Vol. 11. HENRY JAMES JR.
  • The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
• Vol. 12. VICTOR HUGO
  • Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor Marie Hugo
• Vol. 13. BALZAC, SAND, DE MUSSET, DAUDET, DE MAUPASSANT
  • Old Goriot, by Honoré Balzac
  • The Devil's Pool, by George Sand
  • The Story of a White Blackbird, by Alfred de Musset
  • The Siege of Berlin, The Last Class—The Story of a Little Alsatian, The Child Spy, The Game of Billiards, and The Bad Zouave, by Alphonse Daudet
  • Walter Schnaffs' Adventure and Two Friends, by Guy de Maupassant
• Vol. 14. JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE
  • Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
• Vol. 15. GOETHE, KELLER, STORM, FONTANE
  • The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
  • The Banner of the Upright Seven, by Gottfried Keller
  • The Rider on the White Horse, by Theodor Storm
  • Trials and Tribulations, by Theodor Fontane
• Vol. 16. LEO NIKOLAEVITCH TOLSTOY 1
  • Anna Karenina, part 1, by Leo Tolstoy
• Vol. 17. LEO NIKOLAEVITCH TOLSTOY 2
  • Anna Karenina, part 2, and Ivan the Fool, by Leo Tolstoy
• Vol. 18. FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
  • Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Vol. 19. IVAN TURGENEV
  • A House of Gentlefolk and Fathers and Children, by Ivan Turgenev
• Vol. 20. VALERA, BJØRNSON, KIELLAND
  • Pepita Jimenez, by Juan Valera
  • A Happy Boy, by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
  • Skipper Worse, by Alexander L. Kielland

The Waltons season 2 episode 24 "The Five-Foot Shelf", where a broke salesman (of the Harvard books) buys a doll for his daughter with Olivia's down-payment on a set of books.

Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March mentions a singed copy of "Dr. Eliot's five-foot shelf," several times throughout.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Harvard Classics

• "The Complete Harvard Classics By Volume – Free PDF Downloads".
• Eliot, Charles W. (ed.). "The Harvard Classics and Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1909–1917". Bartleby. (Online version.)
• "The Harvard Classics / Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf". Internet Archive. (All volumes.)
• Lectures on the Harvard Classics public domain audiobook at LibriVox