Set of 10 Harvard Classics hardcover Deluxe Edition

The fifty-volume Harvard Classics series was first published in 1909 and 1910. It was compiled and edited by Harvard University president Charles Eliot, who had claimed that it was possible to fit on a five-foot shelf enough books to contain all the knowledge necessary for a well-rounded liberal arts education. As Eliot said, "a five-foot shelf would hold books enough to give in the course of years a good for substitute a liberal education in youth to any one who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but ten minutes a day for reading."