Essays: English and American: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics Vol. XXVIII (in 51 Volumes): 28

Author names not noted above: Matthew Arnold John Ruskin Walter Bagehot Thomas Henry Huxley Edward Freeman Robert Louis Stevenson William Ellery Channing Edgar Allan Poe Henry David Thoreau Abraham Lincoln James Russell Lowell 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 Universitys longest-serving president. Also known as Dr. Eliots Five Foot Shelf it represented Eliots 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 XXVIII features essays from 12 essential writers on both sides of the Atlantic personal reflections and cultural criticisms that continue to impact literature today: - Jonathan Swift by William Thackeray - The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman - The Study of Poetry by Matthew Arnold - Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin - John Milton by Walter Bagehot - Science and Culture by Thomas Henry Huxley - Race and Language by Edward Freeman - Truth of Intercourse and Samuel Pepys by Robert Louis Stevenson - On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes by William Ellery Channing - The Poetic Principle by Edgar Allan Poe - Walking by Henry David Thoreau - Abraham Lincoln and Democracy by James Russell Lowell