"Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952 by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. to present the western canon in a single package of 54 volumes. The series is now in its second edition and contains 60 volumes.

The project got its start at the University of Chicago. University president Robert Hutchins collaborated with Mortimer Adler to develop a course, generally aimed at businessmen, for the purpose of filling in gaps in education, to make one more well-rounded and familiar with the "Great Books" and ideas of the past three millennia. Among the original students was William Benton, future US Senator and later CEO of the Encyclopædia Britannica. He proposed selecting the greatest books of the canon, complete and unabridged, having Hutchins and Adler edit them for publishing by Encyclopædia Britannica. Hutchins was wary, fearing that the works would be sold and treated as encyclopedias, thereby cheapening them. Nevertheless, he agreed to the project and paid $60,000 for it.

After debates about what to include and how to present it, with an eventual budget of $2,000,000, the project was ready. It was presented at a gala at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on April 15, 1952. In his speech, Hutchins said "This is more than a set of books, and more than a liberal education. Great Books of the Western World is an act of piety. Here are the sources of our being. Here is our heritage. This is the West. This is its meaning for mankind." The first two volumes would be presented to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
Sales were initially poor. After 1,863 were sold in 1952, less than one-tenth that number were sold the following year. A financial debacle loomed, until Encyclopædia Britannica altered the marketing strategy and sold the set (as Hutchins had feared) through experienced door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen. Through this method 50,000 sets were sold in 1961. In 1963 the editors published Gateway to the Great Books, a ten-volume set of readings designed as an introduction to the authors and themes in the Great Books series. Each year from 1961 to 1998 the editors published The Great Ideas Today, an annual update on the applicability of the Great Books to current issues." - Wikipedia

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