I was given a copy of the Great Books of the Western World by my father when I earned my Masters of Accountancy.  Or perhaps when I received my Bachelor’s degrees.  It’s been a while, so I’m not exactly sure.

During the last couple decades, I’ve occasionally started the Ten Year Reading Plan, but never got very far.  At my age, I’ve decided that if I don’t start, I’ll die before I finish.  And so, I’m starting, yet again. I’ll be documenting my readings in this blog.

I’m reading from the Second Edition of the Great Books of the Western World.  The following are the contents of the Second Edition, with links to anything I’ve written about the work.  One of the purposes of this list is to keep track of what I’ve read, and (more importantly) what I haven’t read.  If only a portion is read, then that will be listed underneath the work.

Volume 1

• Syntopicon I: Angel, Animal, Aristocracy, Art, Astronomy, Beauty, Being, Cause, Chance, Change, Citizen, Constitution, Courage, Custom and Convention, Definition, Democracy, Desire, Dialectic, Duty, Education, Element, Emotion, Eternity, Evolution, Experience, Family, Fate, Form, God, Good and Evil, Government, Habit, Happiness, History, Honor, Hypothesis, Idea, Immortality, Induction, Infinity, Judgment, Justice, Knowledge, Labor, Language, Law, Liberty, Life and Death, Logic, and Love

Volume 2

• Syntopicon II: Man, Mathematics, Matter, Mechanics, Medicine, Memory and Imagination, Metaphysics, Mind, Monarchy, Nature, Necessity and Contingency, Oligarchy, One and Many, Opinion, Opposition, Philosophy, Physics, Pleasure and Pain, Poetry, Principle, Progress, Prophecy, Prudence, Punishment, Quality, Quantity, Reasoning, Relation, Religion, Revolution, Rhetoric, Same and Other, Science, Sense, Sign and Symbol, Sin, Slavery, Soul, Space, State, Temperance, Theology, Time, Truth, Tyranny, Universal and Particular, Virtue and Vice, War and Peace, Wealth, Will, Wisdom, and World

Volume 3

• Homer
  • The Iliad
  • The Odyssey

Volume 4

• Aeschylus
  • The Suppliant Maidens
  • The Persians
  • Seven Against Thebes
  • Prometheus Bound
  • The Oresteia
    • Agamemnon
    • Choephoroe
    • The Eumenides
• Sophocles
  • The Oedipus Cycle
    • Oedipus the King
    • Oedipus at Colonus
    • Antigone
  • Ajax
  • Electra
  • The Trachiniae
  • Philoctetes
• Euripides
  • Rhesus
  • Medea
  • Hippolytus
  • Alcestis
  • Heracleidae
  • The Suppliants
  • Trojan Women
  • Ion
  • Helen
  • Andromache
  • Electra
  • Bacchantes
  • Hecuba
  • Heracles Mad
  • Phoenician Women
  • Orestes
  • Iphigeneia in Tauris
  • Iphigeneia at Aulis
  • Cyclops
• Aristophanes
  • The Acharnians
  • The Knights
  • The Clouds
  • The Wasps
  • Peace
  • The Birds
  • The Frogs
  • Lysistrata
  • Thesmophoriazusae
  • Ecclesiazousae
  • Plutus

Volume 5

• Herodotus
  • The History
• Thucydides
  • History of the Peloponnesian War

Volume 6

• Plato
  • The Dialogues
    • Charmides
    • Lysis
    • Laches
    • Protagoras
    • Euthydemus
    • Cratylus
    • Phaedrus
    • Ion
    • Symposium
    • Meno
    • Euthyphro
    • Apology
    • Crito
    • Phaedo
    • Gorgias
    • The Republic
      • Book I-II
    • Timaeus
    • Critias
    • Parmenides
    • Theaetetus
    • Sophist
    • Statesman
    • Philebus
    • Laws
  • The Seventh Letter

Volume 7

• Aristotle
  • Categories
  • On Interpretation
  • Prior Analytics
  • Posterior Analytics
  • Topics
  • Sophistical Refutations
  • Physics
  • On the Heavens
  • On Generation and Corruption
  • Meteorology
  • Metaphysics
  • On the Soul
  • Minor biological works

Volume 8

• Aristotle
  • History of Animals
  • Parts of Animals
  • On the Motion of Animals
  • On the Gait of Animals
  • On the Generation of Animals
  • Nicomachean Ethics
    • Book I
  • Politics
    • Book I
  • The Athenian Constitution
  • Rhetoric
  • Poetics

Volume 9

• Hippocrates
  • Works
• Galen
  • On the Natural Faculties

Volume 10

• Euclid
  • Elements
• Archimedes
  • On the Sphere and Cylinder
  • Measurement of a Circle
  • On Conoids and Spheroids
  • On Spirals
  • On the Equilibrium of Planes
  • The Sand Reckoner
  • The Quadrature of the Parabola
  • On Floating Bodies
  • Book of Lemmas
  • The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems
• Nicomachus of Gerasa
  • Introduction to Arithmetic

Volume 11

• Lucretius
  • On the Nature of Things
• Epictetus
  • The Discourses
• Marcus Aurelius
  • The Meditations
• Plotinus
  • The Six Enneads

Volume 12

• Virgil
  • Eclogues
  • Georgics
  • Aeneid

Volume 13

• Plutarch
  • The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

Volume 14

• P. Cornelius Tacitus
  • The Annals
  • The Histories

Volume 15

• Ptolemy
  • Almagest, part 1
• Nicolaus Copernicus
  • On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres
• Johannes Kepler
  • Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (Books IV–V)
  • The Harmonies of the World (Book V)

Volume 16

• Augustine of Hippo
  • The Confessions
  • The City of God
  • On Christian Doctrine

Volume 17

• Thomas Aquinas
  • Summa Theologica (First part complete, selections from second part)

Volume 18

• Thomas Aquinas
  • Summa Theologica (Selections from second and third parts and supplement)

Volume 19

• Dante Alighieri
  • The Divine Comedy

• Geoffrey Chaucer
  • Troilus and Criseyde
  • The Canterbury Tales

Volume 20

• John Calvin
  • Institutes of the Christian Religion (Selections)

Volume 21

• Niccolò Machiavelli
  • The Prince
• Thomas Hobbes
  • Leviathan

Volume 22

• François Rabelais
  • Gargantua and Pantagruel

Volume 23

• Erasmus
  • The Praise of Folly
• Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
  • Essays

Volume 24

• William Shakespeare
  • The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
  • The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
  • The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
  • The Tragedy of Richard the Third
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Titus Andronicus
  • The Taming of the Shrew
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • The Tragedy of King Richard the Second
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • The Life and Death of King John
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
  • The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • The Life of King Henry the Fifth
  • Julius Caesar
  • As You Like It

Volume 25

• William Shakespeare
  • Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
  • The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • Troilus and Cressida
  • All’s Well That Ends Well
  • Measure for Measure
  • Othello, the Moor of Venice
  • King Lear
  • Macbeth
  • Antony and Cleopatra
  • Coriolanus
  • Timon of Athens
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre
  • Cymbeline
  • The Winter’s Tale
  • The Tempest
  • The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth
  • Sonnets

Volume 26

• William Gilbert
  • On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
• Galileo Galilei
  • Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences
• William Harvey
  • On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
  • On the Circulation of Blood
  • On the Generation of Animals

Volume 27

• Miguel de Cervantes
  • The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha

Volume 28

• Sir Francis Bacon
  • The Advancement of Learning
  • Novum Organum
  • New Atlantis

• René Descartes
  • Rules for the Direction of the Mind
  • Discourse on the Method
  • Meditations on First Philosophy
  • Objections Against the Meditations and Replies
  • The Geometry
• Benedict de Spinoza
  • Ethics

Volume 29

• John Milton
  • English Minor Poems
  • Paradise Lost
  • Samson Agonistes
  • Areopagitica

Volume 30

• Blaise Pascal
  • The Provincial Letters
  • Pensées
  • Scientific and mathematical essays

Volume 31

• Molière
  • The School for Wives
  • The Critique of the School for Wives
  • Tartuffe
  • Don Juan
  • The Miser
  • The Would-Be Gentleman
  • The Imaginary Invalid
• Jean Racine
  • Bérénice
  • Phèdre

Volume 32

• Sir Isaac Newton
  • Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
  • Optics
• Christian Huygens
  • Treatise on Light

Volume 33

• John Locke
  • A Letter Concerning Toleration
  • Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay
  • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
• George Berkeley
  • The Principles of Human Knowledge
• David Hume
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Volume 34

• Jonathan Swift
  • Gulliver’s Travels
• Voltaire
  • Candide
• Denis Diderot
  • Rameau’s Nephew

Volume 35

• Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
  • The Spirit of the Laws
• Jean Jacques Rousseau
  • A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
  • A Discourse on Political Economy
  • The Social Contract

Volume 36

• Adam Smith
  • An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Volume 37

• Edward Gibbon
  • The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 1)

Volume 38

• Edward Gibbon
  • The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 2)

Volume 39

• Immanuel Kant
  • Critique of Pure Reason
  • Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
  • Critique of Practical Reason
  • Excerpts from The Metaphysics of Morals
    • 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
  • The Critique of Judgement

Volume 40

• American State Papers
  • Declaration of Independence
  • Articles of Confederation
  • The Constitution of the United States of America
• Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
  • The Federalist
• John Stuart Mill
  • On Liberty
  • Considerations on Representative Government
  • Utilitarianism

Volume 41

• James Boswell
  • The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Volume 42

• Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
  • Elements of Chemistry
• Michael Faraday
  • Experimental Researches in Electricity

Volume 43

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  • The Philosophy of Right
  • The Philosophy of History
• Søren Kierkegaard
  • Fear and Trembling
• Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Beyond Good and Evil

Volume 44

• Alexis de Tocqueville
  • Democracy in America

Volume 45

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Faust
• Honoré de Balzac
  • Cousin Bette

Volume 46

• Jane Austen
  • Emma
• George Eliot
  • Middlemarch

Volume 47

• Charles Dickens
  • Little Dorrit

Volume 48

• Herman Melville
  • Moby Dick; or, The Whale
• Mark Twain
  • Huckleberry Finn

Volume 49

• Charles Darwin
  • The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
  • The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Volume 50

• Karl Marx
  • Capital
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
  • Manifesto of the Communist Party

Volume 51

• Count Leo Tolstoy
  • War and Peace

Volume 52

• Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
  • The Brothers Karamazov
• Henrik Ibsen
  • A Doll’s House
  • The Wild Duck
  • Hedda Gabler
  • The Master Builder

Volume 53

• William James
  • The Principles of Psychology

Volume 54

• Sigmund Freud
  • The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis
  • Selected Papers on Hysteria
  • 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
  • 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
  • New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis

Volume 55

• William James
  • Pragmatism
• Henri Bergson
  • “An Introduction to Metaphysics”
• John Dewey
  • Experience and Education
• Alfred North Whitehead
  • Science and the Modern World
• Bertrand Russell
  • The Problems of Philosophy
• Martin Heidegger
  • What Is Metaphysics?
• Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • Philosophical Investigations
• Karl Barth
  • The Word of God and the Word of Man

Volume 56

• Henri Poincaré
  • Science and Hypothesis
• Max Planck
  • Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers
• Alfred North Whitehead
  • An Introduction to Mathematics
• Albert Einstein
  • Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
• Arthur Eddington
  • The Expanding Universe
• Niels Bohr
  • Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (selections)
  • Discussion with Einstein on Epistemology
• G. H. Hardy
  • A Mathematician’s Apology
• Werner Heisenberg
  • Physics and Philosophy
• Erwin Schrödinger
  • What Is Life?
• Theodosius Dobzhansky
  • Genetics and the Origin of Species
• C. H. Waddington
  • The Nature of Life

Volume 57

• Thorstein Veblen
  • The Theory of the Leisure Class
• R. H. Tawney
  • The Acquisitive Society
• John Maynard Keynes
  • The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Volume 58

• Sir James George Frazer
  • The Golden Bough (selections)
• Max Weber
  • Essays in Sociology (selections)
• Johan Huizinga
  • The Autumn of the Middle Ages
• Claude Lévi-Strauss
  • Structural Anthropology (selections)

Volume 59

• Henry James
  • The Beast in the Jungle
• George Bernard Shaw
  • Saint Joan
• Joseph Conrad
  • Heart of Darkness
• Anton Chekhov
  • Uncle Vanya
• Luigi Pirandello
  • Six Characters in Search of an Author
• Marcel Proust
  • Remembrance of Things Past: “Swann in Love”
• Willa Cather
  • A Lost Lady
• Thomas Mann
  • Death in Venice
• James Joyce
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Volume 60

• Virginia Woolf
  • To the Lighthouse
• Franz Kafka
  • The Metamorphosis
• D. H. Lawrence
  • The Prussian Officer
• T. S. Eliot
  • The Waste Land
• Eugene O’Neill
  • Mourning Becomes Electra
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Great Gatsby
• William Faulkner
  • A Rose for Emily
• Bertolt Brecht
  • Mother Courage and Her Children
• Ernest Hemingway
  • The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
• George Orwell
  • Animal Farm
• Samuel Beckett
  • Waiting for Godot