Book Description

Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf. Volume XXIV features four philosophical works by Irish statesman EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797): [ "On Taste," a 1756 consideration of critical reasoning [ "On the Sublime and Beautiful," a 1757 essay on aesthetics that would influence Immanuel Kant [ "Reflections on the French Revolution," a 1790 argument against that budding uprising, which continues to inform anticommunist and antisocialist debates [ "A Letter to a Noble Lord," a 1796 missive that is a classic political tirade