The Harvard Classics - Essays: English and American

by Charles William Eliot

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Genres: Classics, Essays, Nonfiction

470 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 1910

About the author

Charles William Eliot was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university. Eliot served the longest term as president in the university's history.

Reviews

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays and speeches which purport to touch upon intellectual and moral topics of interest. Imagine that a college course (maybe loosely a political philosophy class) intended to develop students into "citizens of the world" - upstanding, right-thinking, practical, and with an appreciation of the arts and a poetical bent. Such a course could design its curriculum around this collection, and I think that's actually the best way to think about this book and its purpose.

If you read for escapism and entertainment, this book is not going to appeal to you (that should have been pretty evident from the title, but I'll make it explicit). A few of the more poetic pieces may interest you - maybe from Poe and Thoreau. This book is (much) less for the escapism/entertainment readers, and (much) more for the didactic/intellectual expansion readers.

To get to the actual essays themselves, they are very well curated. Though all are from appreciably in the past by this point, only one of the 28 essays is truly dated (Race and Language). The others remain perfectly relevant, moving, and thought-provoking even 100+ years later. All the pieces seem to have been chosen to have a hopeful and uplifting ultimate outlook, as well, even where the subject matter is treating society's areas in need of improvement.

[Ixby Wuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked Ruskin, the ones about Milton and Pepys and Lincoln, and the others made me chuckle sometimes too.