Harvard Classics

Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (of 4)

Plutarch

Plutarch’s Lives is a collection of paired biographies that draws moral lessons from the deeds of great…

The Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin

The Voyage of the Beagle is Charles Darwin’s first‑hand account of the five‑year scientific expedition that…

The Alchemist

Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist is a seventeenth‑century English comedy that opens in the bustling streets of…

The Mill on the Floss

George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss is a domestic tale set in rural England, foregrounded by a vivid description of the…

The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come Delivered under the similitude of a dream, by John Bunyan

John Bunyan

The work is a Christian allegorical narrative that begins with a long, self‑referential preface in which the…

Essays — First Series

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays, First Series is a collection of Ralph Wallace Emerson’s early American essays, first published in the…

Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage Round the World of H.M.S. Beagle Under the Command of Captain Fitz Roy, R.N.

Charles Darwin

The work is Charles Darwin’s Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries…

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)

Edmund Burke

This volume gathers the later, often unpublished, writings of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, whose career…

The Imitation of Christ

à Kempis Thomas

The Imitation of Christ is a devotional treatise that emerged in the early fifteenth‑century Latin literary…

Plays of Sophocles: Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone

Sophocles

The volume brings together Sophocles’ three great Theban tragedies, beginning with the harrowing tale of…

The Odyssey

Homer

The work before you is a translation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, presented alongside a scholarly essay…

Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Complete

Dante Alighieri

Household Tales by Brothers Grimm

Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm

The volume is a collection of German folk narratives compiled by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, known for gathering…

The Agamemnon of Aeschylus Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes

Aeschylus

The work before you is a scholarly translation of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, rendered into English rhyming verse…

The Fables of Aesop Selected, Told Anew, and Their History Traced

Aesop

The volume presents a scholarly edition of the fables traditionally ascribed to Aesop, beginning with a…

Essays — Second Series

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This volume is the second collection of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s American essays, published in the nineteenth…

The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Francis Bacon

The work is a collection of essays by Francis Bacon, presented here as “The Essays or Counsels, Civil and…

Father Goriot

Honoré de Balzac

Father Goriot is a French‑origin novel set in the early years of Louis XVIII’s reign, where the cramped,…

Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates

Plato

This volume presents three of Plato’s most celebrated dialogues, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, which together…

The Analects of Confucius (from the Chinese Classics)

Confucius

The Analects presents the sayings and dialogues of Confucius as they were recorded by his disciples, offering…

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12)

Edmund Burke

The volume presents a dense, documentary account of the political and financial turmoil surrounding the…

The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

Leo Tolstoy

The volume gathers a selection of Tolstoy’s short fiction, each introduced by a reflective essay on…

She Stoops to Conquer; Or, The Mistakes of a Night: A Comedy

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer; Or, The Mistakes of a Night” opens with a self‑referential…

The School for Scandal

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal is an 18th‑century English comedy that opens with a…