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 University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr.
Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's 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 XLII is the third of
three volumes that ambitiously survey half a milliennium of poetry in
the English language. The 200 works by 40 19th-century British authors
in this volume alone include: - Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "The Lady of
Shalott" - William Makepeace Thackeray: "The End of the Play" - Robert
Browning: "The Lost Mistress" - Emily Bronte: "Last Lines" - Matthew
Arnold: "To Marguerite" - Charles Dickens: "The Ivy Green" - Dante
Gabriel Rossetti: "Silent Noon" - Christina Georgina Rossetti: "Song" -
William Morris: "Prologue of the Earthly Paradise" - Robert Louis
Stevenson: "In the Highlands" - Edgar Allan Poe: "The Raven" - Ralph
Waldo Emerson: "The Apology" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "The Rainy
Day" - Walt Whitman: "O Captain! My Captain!" - and many more.