The Great Books of the Western World, First Edition

Detailed Contents and Ten-Year Reading Plan

Selections included in the ten-year reading plan show the year or years in which they are scheduled. Selections are included from all volumes and all authors excepting Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 41. The Bible is not part of the GBWW but some books are part of the reading plan; these are listed at the end of this document.

Volume 1

The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education

Volume 2

The Great Ideas, a Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World [I. Angel to Love]

Volume 3

The Great Ideas, a Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World [II. Man to World; Bibliography of Additional Readings; Inventory of Terms]

Volume 4

Homer

• The Iliad: Year 2
• The Odyssey: Year 6

Volume 5

Aeschylus (c. 525-456 B.C.E.)

• The Suppliant Maidens
• The Persians
• The Seven Against Thebes
• Prometheus Bound: Year 3
• Agamemnon: Year 2
• Choephoroe: Year 2
• Eumenides: Year 2

Sophocles (c. 495-406 B.C.E.)

• Oedipus the King: Year 2
• Oedipus at Colonus
• Antigone: Year 2
• Ajax: Year 10
• Electra: Year 10
• Trachiniae
• Philoctetes

Euripides (c. 480-406 B.C.E.)

• Rhesus
• Medea: Year 4
• Hippolytus: Year 4
• Alcestis
• Heracleidae
• The Supplicants
• The Trojan Women: Year 4
• Ion
• Helen
• Andromache
• Electra
• The Bacchantes: Year 4
• Hecuba
• Heracles Mad
• The Phoenician Maidens
• Orestes
• Iphigenia Among the Tauri
• Iphigenia at Aulis
• The Cyclops

Aristophanes (c. 445-380 B.C.E.)

• The Acharnians
• The Knights
• The Clouds: Year 1
• The Wasps
• The Peace
• The Birds
• The Frogs
• The Lysistrata: Year 1
• The Thesmophoriazusae: Year 8
• The Ecclesiazusae: Year 8
• The Plutus: Year 8

Volume 6

Herodotus (c. 484-425 B.C.E.)

• The History: Bk. I-II Year 2; Bk. VII-IX Year 3

Thucydides (c. 460-400 B.C.E.)

• The History of the Peloponnesian War: Bk. I-II, V Year 3; Bk. VII-VIII Year 9

Volume 7

Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.E.)

• Charmides
• Lysis
• Laches
• Protagoras
• Euthydemus
• Cratylus
• Phaedrus
• Ion
• Symposium: Year 7
• Meno: Year 2
• Euthyphro
• Apology: Year 1
• Crito: Year 1
• Phaedo: Year 5
• Gorgias: Year 8
• The Republic: Bk. I-II Year 1; Bk. VI-VII Year 4
• Timaeus: Year 10
• Critias
• Parmenides
• Theaetetus: Year 4
• Sophist: Year 9
• Statesman: Year 3
• Philebus: Year 7
• Laws: Book X Year 6
• The Seventh Letter

Volume 8

Aristotle (c. 384-322 B.C.E.)

• Categories: Year 5
• On Interpretation: 1-10 Year 3
• Prior Analytics
• Posterior Analytics
• Topics
• On Sophistical Refutations
• Physics: Selections Year 4
• On the Heavens
• On Generation and Corruption
• Meteorology
• Metaphysics: Selections Years 4, 6
• On the Soul: Selections Year 5
• On Sense and the Sensible
• On Memory and Reminiscence
• On Sleep and Sleeplessness
• On Dreams
• On Prophesying by Dreams
• On Longevity and Shortness of Life
• On Youth and Old Age, On Life and Death, on Breathing

Volume 9

Aristotle (c. 384-322 B.C.E.)

• History of Animals
• On the Parts of Animals: Selections Year 10
• On the Motion of Animals
• On the Gait of Animals
• On the Generation of Animals: Selections Year 10
• Nicomachean Ethics: Selections Years 1, 2, 7, 8
• Politics: Selections Years 1, 3, 9
• The Athenian Constitution
• Rhetoric: Selections Year 8
• On Poetics: Year 2

Volume 10

Hippocrates (c. 400 B.C.E.)

• The Oath: Year 5
• On Ancient Medicine: Year 5
• On Airs, Waters, and Places: Year 5
• The Book of Prognostics: Year 5
• On Regimen in Acute Diseases
• Of the Epidemics: Year 5
• On Injuries of the Head
• On the Surgery
• On Fractures
• On the Articulations
• Instruments of Reduction
• Aphorisms
• The Law on Ulcers: Year 5
• On Fistulae
• On Hemorrhoids
• On the Sacred Disease: Year 5

Galen (c. 130-200 C.E.)

• On the Natural Faculties: Year 5

Volume 11

Euclid (c. 300 B.C.E.)

• The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements: Book I Year 3

Archimedes (c. 287-212 B.C.E.)

• On the Sphere and Cylinder
• Measurement of a Circle: Year 7
• On Conoids and Spheroids
• On Spirals
• On the Equilibrium of Planes: Selections Year 7
• The Sand-Reckoner: Year 7
• Quadrature of the Parabola
• On Floating Bodies: Year 7
• Book of Lemmas
• The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems

Apollonius of Perga (c. 262-200 B.C.E.)

• On Conic Sections: Selections Year 9

Nicomachus of Gerasa (c. 100 C.E.)

• Introduction to Arithmetic: Year 2

Volume 12

Lucretius (c. 98-55 B.C.E.)

• On the Nature of Things: Bk. I-IV Year 2; Bk. V-VI Year 10

Epictetus (c. 60-138 C.E.)

• The Discourses: Year 7

Marcus Aurelius (121-180 C.E.)

• The Meditations: Year 2

Volume 13

Virgil (70-19 B.C.E.)

• The Eclogues: Year 10
• The Georgics: Year 10
• The Aeneid: Year 5

Volume 14

Plutarch (c. 46-120 C.E.)

• The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Numa, Alexander, Caesar Year 1

Volume 15

P. Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55-117 C.E.)

• The Annals: Year 3
• The Histories: Year 6

Volume 16

Ptolemy (c. 100-178 C.E.)

• The Almagest: Selections Year 5

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

• On the Revolutions of Heavenly Bodies: Selections Year 5

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

• Epitome of Copernican Astronomy [Book IV-V]: Selections Year 5
• The Harmonies of the World [Book V]

Volume 17

Plotinus (205-270 C.E.)

• The Six Enneads: #1 Year 7; #5 Year 6; #6 Year 5

Volume 18

Augustine (354-430 C.E.)

• The Confessions: Bk. I-VIII Year 1; Bk. IX-XIII Year 4
• The City of God: Bk. XV-XVIII Year 6; Bk. V, XIX Year 9
• On Christian Doctrine: Year 8

Volume 19

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274): Selections both vol. Years 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10

• Summa Theologica

Volume 20

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274)

• Summa Theologica (cont.)

Volume 21

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

• The Divine Comedy: Hell Year 5; Purgatory Year 6; Paradise Year 7

Volume 22

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400)

• Troilus and Cressida: Year 3
• The Canterbury Tales: Selections Year 10

Volume 23

Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

• The Prince: Year 1

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• Leviathan: Bk. I Year 2; Bk. II Year 8

Volume 24

François Rabelais (c. 1495-1553)

• Gargantua and Pantagruel: Bk. I-II Year 1; Bk. III-IV Year 7

Volume 25

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592)

• Essays: Selections Year 1; One essay Year 4

Volume 26

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

• Henry VI Part One
• Henry VI Part Two
• Henry VI Part Three
• Richard III
• Comedy of Errors: Year 6
• Titus Andronicus
• The Taming of the Shrew: Year 6
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Love's Labor's Lost
• Romeo and Juliet
• Richard II: Year 10
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• The Life and Death of King John
• The Merchant of Venice
• Henry IV Part One: Year 10
• Henry IV Part Two: Year 10
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Henry V: Year 10
• Julius Caesar: Year 7
• As You Like It: Year 6

Volume 27

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

• Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will: Year 6
• Hamlet: Year 1
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Troilus and Cressida: Year 7
• All's Well That Ends Well
• Measure For Measure
• Othello: Year 8
• King Lear: Year 8
• Macbeth: Year 3
• Antony and Cleopatra: Year 7
• Coriolanus
• Timon of Athens
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• Cymbeline
• The Winter's Tale
• The Tempest
• Henry VIII
• Sonnets

Volume 28

William Gilbert (1540-1603)

• On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies: Year 9

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

• Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences: Selections Years 4, 7

William Harvey (1578-1657)

• On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals: Year 5
• On the Circulation of the Blood
• On the Generation of Animals: Selections Year 10

Volume 29

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

• The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha: Part I Year 5; Part II Year 10

Volume 30

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

• Advancement of Learning: Selections Year 8
• Novum Organum: Part I Year 4
• New Atlantis

Volume 31

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• Rules for the Direction of the Mind: Year 9
• Discourse on the Method: Year 4
• Meditations on First Philosophy: Year 8
• Objections Against the Meditations and Replies
• The Geometry: Year 9

Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677)

• Ethics: Bk. I Year 6; Bk. II Year 5; Bk. III Year 8; Bk. IV-V Year 7

Volume 32

John Milton (1608-1674)

• English Minor Poems
• Paradise Lost: Year 3
• Samson Agonistes: Year 6
• Areopagitica: Year 2

Volume 33

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

• The Provincial Letters: Year 6
• Pensées: Selections Year 2
• Preface to the Treatise on the Vacuum
• New Experiments Concerning the Vacuum
• Account of the Great Experiment Concerning the Equilibrium of Fluids: Year 9
• Treatises on the Equilibrium of Liquids and on the Weight of the Mass of the Air
• On Geometrical Demonstration: Year 9
• Treatise on the Arithmetical Triangle: Year 2
• Correspondence With Fermat on the Theory of Probabilities

Volume 34

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

• Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy: Selections Years 4, 7
• Optics

Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)

• Treatise on Light: Year 7

Volume 35

John Locke (1632-1704)

• A Letter Concerning Toleration: Year 8
• Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay: Year 1
• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Selections Years 3, 4, 6

George Berkeley (1685-1753)

• The Principles of Human Knowledge: Year 5

David Hume (1711-1776)

• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Year 4

Volume 36

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

• Gulliver's Travels: Year 2

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)

• The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. : Year 8

Volume 37

Henry Fielding (1707-1754)

• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling: Year 9

Volume 38

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

• The Spirit of Laws: Selections Year 9

Jean Jaques Rousseau (172-1778)

• A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality: Year 2
• A Discourse on Political Economy: Year 8
• The Social Contract: Bk. I-II Year 1

Volume 39

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

• An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: Selections Years 1, 8

Volume 40

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Chapters 1-40): Ch. 15-16 Year 1; Ch. 1-5 Year 6

Volume 41

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, cont'd (Chapters 41-71)

Volume 42

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

• The Critique of Pure Reason: Selections Years 4, 5, 6
• Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals: Year 2
• The Critique of Practical Reason: Year 7
• Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics With a Note on Conscience
• General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals
• The Science of Right: Year 3
• The Critique of Judgement: “Aesthetic” Year 7; “Teleological” Year 10

Volume 43

American State Papers

• The Declaration of Independence: Year 1
• Articles of Confederation
• The Constitution of the United States of America: Year 1

Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), James Madison (1751-1836), John Jay (1745-1829)

• The Federalist: Selections Year 1

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

• On Liberty: Year 2
• Representative Government: No. 1-3 Year 3
• Utilitarianism: Year 7

Volume 44

James Boswell (1740-1795)

• The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Selections Years 8, 10

Volume 45

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794)

• Elements of Chemistry: Part I Year 3

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830

• Analytical Theory of Heat [Preliminary Disclosure, Ch. 1-2] : Year 9

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

• Experimental Researches in Electricity: Selections Year 9

Volume 46

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

• The Philosophy of Right: Ch. III Year 9
• The Philosophy of History: Introduction Year 6

Volume 47

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

• Faust: Part I Year 8; Part II Year 10

Volume 48

Herman Melville (1819-1882)

• Moby Dick; or, the Whale: Year 4

Volume 49

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

• The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection: Selections Year 5
• The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex: Selections Year 10

Volume 50

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Capital: Selections Years 8, 9, 10

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)

• Manifesto of the Communist Party: Year 1

Volume 51

Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

• War and Peace: Bk. I-VIII Year 5; Bk. IX-XV, Epilogues Year 6

Volume 52

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

• The Brothers Karamazov: Parts I-II Year 3; Parts III-IV Year 4

Volume 53

William James (1842-1910)

• The Principles of Psychology: Ch. I, V-VII Year 10; Ch. VIII-X Year 8; Ch. XV, XX Year 4; Ch. XXVIII Year 5

Volume 54

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis: Year 3
• Selected Papers on Hysteria [Chapters 1-10]
• The Sexual Enlightenment of Children
• The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy
• Observations on "Wild" Psycho-Analysis
• The Interpretation of Dreams
• On Narcissism
• Instincts and Their Vicissitudes
• Repression
• The Unconscious
• A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis: Year 10
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle
• Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
• The Ego and the Id
• Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety
• Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
• Civilization and Its Discontents: Year 9
• New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis

Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy Year 6; Job, Isiah, Amos Year 7

New Testament: Matthew, Acts Year 1; John, Romans, I Corinthians Year 9

This list was copied from http://www.crispyneurons.com/writing/great/, with corrections and additions.

Alan Nicoll's Great Books of the Western World home page.

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Alan Nicoll's email address is: Alan_Nicoll@Yahoo.com. Your comments are welcome. Join the Great Conversation!