
Harvard Classics Book Download - kqr2
https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120212
======
phs318u
Or in any format you like here: [https://archive.org/details/Harvard-
Classics](https://archive.org/details/Harvard-Classics) or
[https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics_(Bookshelf)](https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics_\(Bookshelf\))

EDIT: added Project Gutenberg link.

~~~
robin_reala
Slight self promotion, but Standard Ebooks has a few of the classics, and a
few more of the classic fiction available as nicely formatted and accessible
PD ebooks (epub, Kobo variant epub, and Kindle formats for each):

\- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/benjamin-franklin/the-
auto...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/benjamin-franklin/the-
autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin)

\- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: [https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-
aurelius/meditation...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-
aurelius/meditations/george-long)

\- Don Quixote by Cervantes: [https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/miguel-de-
cervantes-saaved...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/miguel-de-cervantes-
saavedra/don-quixote/john-ormsby)

\- Pride and Predudice by Jane Austen:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jane-austen/pride-and-
prej...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice)

\- Vanity Fair by William Thackeray:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-makepeace-
thackera...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-makepeace-
thackeray/vanity-fair)

\- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens/david-
copp...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens/david-copperfield)

\- Washington Irving collection:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/washington-irving/the-
sket...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/washington-irving/the-sketch-book-
of-geoffrey-crayon-gent)

\- Father Goriot by Balzac: [https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/honore-de-
balzac/father-go...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/honore-de-
balzac/father-goriot/ellen-marriage)

\- The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/j-w-von-goethe/the-
sorrows...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/j-w-von-goethe/the-sorrows-of-
young-werther/r-d-boylan)

\- Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/crime-
an...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/crime-and-
punishment/constance-garnett)

These are nearly always taken from the Gutenberg source transcriptions, but
tidied up typographically and marked up using modern technologies. If you
notice any problems with any of these we’ll happily take PRs!

~~~
jpttsn
Thanks for Standard; it really adds a missing piece to the landscape.

------
schizoidboy
POSIX one-liner to download all PDFs:

    
    
      $ curl -s https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120212 \
        | grep "downloads.*download" | sed -e 's/href/\n&/g' \
        | sed 's/.*\(http:.*download\)/\1/g' | grep " - " \
        | grep -v target | sed 's/"> - / /g' | sed 's/<.*//g' \
        | while read link rest; do \
            if [ "${i}" = "" ]; then i=1; fi; \
            wget -O "Harvard Classics - Volume $(printf '%02d' ${i}) - ${rest}.pdf" "${link}"; \
            i=$(( i + 1 )); \
          done

~~~
glitch
For anyone that wants to download the books, I strongly recommend downloading
the PDF archive on Archive.org because the image scans within the PDFs are of
much higher quality. [https://archive.org/details/Harvard-
Classics](https://archive.org/details/Harvard-Classics)

~~~
schizoidboy
Nice. The `du -ch *pdf` for myharvardclassics.com is 439M, and this higher
quality zip is 975MB.

    
    
      $ wget "https://archive.org/compress/Harvard-Classics/formats=TEXT%20PDF&file=/Harvard-Classics.zip"

------
herodotus
It is great that these books are available for download. However, the quality
of a translation is hugely important. Even translations that were considered
great at the time may be turgid and off-putting to a contemporary ear. And the
problem is that you might try, for example, Dante from this list, hate it, and
miss out on what may have been a life-altering reading experience. My advice,
if you want to read some of the great classics, is to (a) look at reviews; and
(b) compare paragraphs from different translations.

------
zhdc1
Whenever this subject comes up, I feel the need to point out St. John's
College's undergraduate liberal arts program: [https://www.sjc.edu/academic-
programs](https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs)

~~~
vonseel
I assume you are implying it is based on the Harvard Classics? I guess they
wouldn’t explicitly advertise it as such.

~~~
barry-cotter
They are pointing out that it’s based on Great Books, the Western Canon. There
will be some disagreement on which minor works are part of the canon but very
little on major works. Plato, Homer, Augustine, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Cicero,
Goethe, Dante, Shakespeare

~~~
tombone12
Props for using the proper name of Ibn Sina!

------
wjnc
So how does one go about reading such classics? Any tips? I often get
distracted by the arcane language of many translations and go for a modern
translation, preferably annotated. Even when the English seems pretty readable
(say, Shakespeare) it's obvious I miss quite a lot in comprehension.

~~~
nicoburns
Open the first page, and continue through the rest. This might seem like a
flippant answer, but I've always hated companion texts which try to read
specific meanings into primary texts. I much prefer just to engage with the
original, and make what I can of it. I figure I might miss some things, but I
can also have my own perspective.

~~~
wenc
I understand where you're coming from, but for most people the brute force
approach to reading original texts without sufficient background deprives them
of many layers of understanding that makes a text rewarding to read.

And because most readers are centuries removed form the original context of
the text, a direct reading also skews their interpretation significantly
because most will read it through their own 21st century lens (this is how
chronological bias seeps in).

Companion texts (or commentaries) might seem like crutches or training wheels
because they only present one interpretive option (which could reflect a
commentary author's biases).

The remedy is use more than one commentary, not necessarily to discard all
commentaries. Critical thinkers do this instinctively anyway -- for instance,
we click on multiple Google News links to figure out what's going on.

Commentaries help a modern reader to get to speed on the historical context
and thinking that was present during that era, which in turn helps them to
formulate their own (more informed) thoughts. One _could_ try to piece
together this material by inferring stuff from the text, but chances are one
would be wrong about the details and one would have to consult secondary or
tertiary materials anyway.

In Chaim Potok's "The Chosen" (fiction), there's a Hasidic character named
Danny Saunders who was a prodigy, praised by all for his intelligence. He had
an eidetic memory and great ability for analysis, but found himself stumped
when reading original texts in psychology. He studies German in order to read
Freud, but he gets stuck on the fact German words can be understood in many
different ways, when he only wants to find the ONE way.

He has a breakthrough when he realizes that Freud's works need to be _studied_
, not _read_. His epiphany led to him studying Freud using Talmudic methods
(with multiple commentaries), arguing with it, etc. and finally, the text
yields to him.

TLDR: when a text stumps you, try reading it with multiple commentaries.

~~~
tombone12
What you are describing is what must be done when one embarks on a project of
literary study.

If you just want a story, which is what almost all readers actually read for,
just read it as it is, and if doesn't make any sense you are perfectly
entitled to think it was a shitty book.

Frankly I think a (fiction) book must always be able to be read as-is,
unsupported by outside means, else it is no longer a book.

(You hear that Greg Egan?! You wrote a really bad text book or a pretty good
fiction book with pointless homework included every now and then.)

~~~
whatshisface
In 500 years, Star Trek will require a watcher's guide and come with a bundle
of commentaries. Footnotes about 20th century culture will crawl across the
bottom of the screen like subtitles. There will be a saying that, "by the time
you are experienced enough to play Wesley you will be too old for him."
Children will be expected to bubble in standardized Star Trek tests.

------
Animats
"The Five Foot Shelf". Those were once a common set of books. They'd show up
in used bookstores. Back when there were bookstores.

~~~
jonsen
You mean, now all the bookstores are used? ;)

Shouldn't it be "used-book stores"?

~~~
projektfu
Nope. Used Bookstores is correct.

------
mynameishere
Most readable one is also the one most mystifying included: Two Years before
the Mast.

I actually bought this collection on ebay years ago for like 10 dollars. It's
really a great example of not being able to buy the time along with the books.
They mostly collect dust. "Mmm, Sacred Writings..."

------
davidkuhta
Would this be a good set from which to gain some insight into the evolution of
the market economy in the southern colonies?

------
olliej
They look great, alas they’re all pdf so text size is fixed :(

~~~
cbluth
What would you recommend? epub? Something else?

~~~
shakna
Epub is a great format if you're not just embedding images. It's pretty
braindead, so generating it is easy, as is converting it to any other standard
you need. Most ereaders can parse it.

However, if you have the LaTeX source, then you can both convert to whatever,
and have no information loss. But you do usually have to render it to
something else.

~~~
vonseel
Where does one find LaTeX source for published books?

------
techer
ZipEpub

[https://archive.org/details/HarvardClassicsEpub](https://archive.org/details/HarvardClassicsEpub)

~~~
wyclif
I downloaded them, unzipped, and opened a few. They're pretty badly formatted,
especially the title pages. And none of the volumes I looked at had any table
of contents.

------
Koshkin
I have been experimenting with the idea of reading some classics in the
languages they were written in - Greek, Latin, French, etc., and I am still
wondering if the experience is worth the effort (of learning a language),
especially given the availability of many excellent English translations.

~~~
bambataa
The difficulty is that your language ability needs to be at such a high level
that you'd lose more nuance from a translation than you would from lack of
vocabulary etc when reading the original. In my opinion it's worth it for
poetry but prose less so.

------
gazzik
Gist for downloading the guide in text format for easier consumption:
[https://gist.github.com/mutaphore/e8f2d9fec119288215b186d7dc...](https://gist.github.com/mutaphore/e8f2d9fec119288215b186d7dcdd3113)

------
aestetix
This is fantastic. My only gripe here is that I don't see Herodotus or
Thucydides listed, which I would consider very important prerequisites to some
of the other books, especially Plutarch.

------
wyclif
Is this resource new, or has it been available for a while?

------
placeholderNam
Would Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius generally make it onto a complete classics
list, or is it because of Stoicism's recent resurgence in popularity?

~~~
Finnucane
I guess it depends on how 'complete' a list you're looking for, but the Loeb
Classics library included Aurelius in 1916 and Epictetus in 1925. They were
not in any way forgotten or thought of as minor.

------
bsenftner
My parent's got a set of these in the 60's, leather bound with gold leaf
printing on the covers and page trims. I had them assessed a few years ago,
and they are worth a small mint. Then my evil sister got them and they are
gone.

------
lazycouchpotato
Which books would you recommend to read from these?

~~~
my_first_acct
Here [1] is a list (extracted from volume 50 apparently) of suggested
excerpts. Supposedly, if you spend just 15 minutes a day reading these, you
will become well educated in just a year. Note: I have not tried this.

[1]
[https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1](https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1)

~~~
pronoiac
Note, some of them require signing in.

I wonder how well this list would work as a mailing list.

------
ramblerman
the reading guide at the bottom is quite nice. It has a daily recommended
15minute snippet.

------
qop
What a great link for starting off the long weekend!

Great idea!

------
known
[https://personalmba.com/](https://personalmba.com/) is also good for
entrepreneurs

------
tramGG
I tried to read through this once. I couldn't get beyond: "Volume 1 - Benjamin
Franklin" because I found Benny Frank to be an insufferable nerd hah. It sort
of ruined the perception that grade school gave me of him.

~~~
keiferski
When people talk about a culture of “anti-intellectualism”, this is what
they’re talking about.

~~~
tramGG
That's not true. He was just sort of a jerk. Maybe I should have said he was a
nerd that was also an insufferable person. :)

Did you read it?

~~~
keiferski
Yes, I've read it multiple times - it's incredibly short yet filled with a lot
of wisdom. I highly suggest you give it a second look.

