About Us

About Us

The Harvard Classics are a collection of the most important books, scientific writings, philosophical arguments, poems, fiction, drama, political theory, pivotal speeches and sacred texts from the entire range of human intellectual activity. The Harvard Classics are the works of 302 of the greatest minds whose writings and discoveries are the foundation for all human knowledge today. You will be certain to cover most of the readings you were supposed to read in high school and college but did not get around to. Finally able to check those off your to do list. The Harvard Classics were designed to give all the elements of a general university or liberal education at home in one year with 15 minutes of diligent reading a day using an exclusive reading schedule. The mission of the Harvard Classics is to provide the means of obtaining such knowledge of ancient and modern literature as deemed essential to be a cultivated person.

My Harvard Classics, LLC was founded on November 7, 2010. We created My Harvard Classics after discovering that there was no place online dedicated only to the Harvard Classics. We knew that there needed to be a place that made the Harvard Classics the central focus and would really open the full potential of the Harvard Classics in the digital era.

As a result My Harvard Classics offers more than any site to give you a convenient, full and exciting experience as you journey through the powerful collection. My Harvard Classics allows you with the click of a mouse to transport oneself into the age of Pericles or the Gardens of the Medici at Florence. The collection is the modern version of Aladdin's lamp and makes one a master of treasures more rare and lustrous than those which adorned the palaces of Persia.

Dr. Eliot's, the creator of the Harvard Classics, Own Story of the Five-Foot Shelf

The Harvard Classics, originally known as Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf, is a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature, compiled and edited by Harvard University president Charles W. Eliot and first published in 1909.

"Before the reading plan represented by The Harvard Classics had taken definite form, I had more than once stated in public that in my opinion a five-foot, at first a three-foot, shelf, would hold books enough to afford a good substitute for a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but fifteen minutes a day for reading."

Dr. Charles W. Eliot

Our Mission

Our mission is to bring the Harvard Classics into the 21^st century and straight to your fingertips with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. We believe the Harvard Classics offers tremendous educational power and will help improve humanity as we embark on an ever increasingly technological journey toward the future. We now more than ever before need to be well rounded humans, rooted in knowledge of the primary source material for all current intellectual advancements in every subject. The primary source is where the first thought and foundational principles of all disciplines we know today began. They began as the writings of geniuses in a vast array of skills and studies that now constitute the foundation of all intellectual activity today. The Harvard Classics is the collection of the most important primary source material. We seek to increase and enhance your link to that source.

Reading the Harvard Classics creates a cultivated scholar that is knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects and disciplines. With such a base of knowledge it is easy to go deeper into any subject today and already have an understanding of its origins and first principles. This allows you to master new subjects quicker and allows you to talk to any professional in any field with a level of confidence and insight. Such cross-pollination of learning also leads to increased creativity in all activities.

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