The Editor's Introduction and Reader's Guide
Harvard Classics, Volume 50
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1910
- Form
- Essay
- Language
- English
- Length
- Long · 460 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Approachable1 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendThe Harvard Classics, Volume 50: Introduction, Reader's Guide, IndexesP. F. Collier and Son, 1910Long out of print; secondhand sets are common, and the text is free on the Internet Archive and Bartleby.
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The apparatus volume of the fifty-volume Harvard Classics, the anthology Charles W. Eliot assembled after saying a five-foot shelf of books could give a liberal education to anyone willing to read fifteen minutes a day. It contains Eliot's introduction explaining the principles of selection, a reader's guide by William Allan Neilson arranging the contents by subject and by course of reading, a chronological index, an index of first lines of poems, and a general index. It is a map of the set rather than a work in its own right.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns The Editor's Introduction and Reader's Guide are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.