The Harvard Classics Challenge
We are excited to announce the Harvard Classics Scholarship Challenge. This challenge encourages scholars to read all 49 of the Harvard Classics books, discuss their experience with mentors, and write an essay for each book. This may seem like a daunting task, but if a scholar reads 10 pages a day, starting in seventh grade, they can complete this challenge before graduation. When they complete this challenge, scholars receive recognition at graduation and a $1500 scholarship to the college of their choice.
Read
Read all 50 Harvard Classic books. Write down the meaningful principles you learn in a commonplace book.
Discuss
After you finish one of the Harvard Classics books, discuss what you learned with a mentor.
Write
Write an essay about the book. (This should be done with each Harvard Classic book.)
Talk to your school library for more information.
All scholars that complete the Harvard Classics Challenge will receive recognition at graduation and a $1500 scholarship.
The Harvard Classics
Guides & Reference
Autobiography & Memoir
- 01. Franklin, Woolman, Penn
- 23. Two Years Before the Mast, Dana
- 25. Autobiography, etc., Essays and Addresses, J.S. Mill, T. Carlyle
- 31. Autobiography, Benvenuto Cellini
Philosophy & Essays
- 02. Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius
- 03. Bacon, Milton's Prose, Thos. Browne
- 05. Essays and English Traits, Emerson
- 27. English Essays Sidney to Macaulay
- 28. Essays English and American
- 32. Literary and Philosophical Essays
- 34. French and English Philosophers, Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hobbes
- 36. Machiavelli, More, Luther
- 37. Locke, Berkeley, Hume
- 48. Thoughts and Minor Works, Pascal
History, Politics & Documents
- 09. Letters and Treatises of Cicero and Pliny
- 12. Plutarch's Lives
- 24. On the Sublime, French Revolution, etc., Burke
- 33. Voyages and Travels
- 35. Chronicle and Romance, Froissart, Malory, Holinshead
- 43. American Historical Documents
Science & Discovery
- 10. Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
- 11. Origin of Species, Darwin
- 29. Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin
- 30. Faraday, Helmholtz, Kelvin, Newcomb, etc.
- 38. Harvey, Jenner, Lister, Pasteur
Sacred & Religious Texts
Drama
- 08. Nine Greek Dramas
- 18. Modern English Drama
- 19. Faust, Egmont, etc. Doctor Faustus, Goethe, Marlowe
- 26. Continental Drama
- 46. Elizabethan Drama 1
- 47. Elizabethan Drama 2
Poetry
- 04. Complete Poems in English, Milton
- 06. Poems and Songs, Burns
- 15. Pilgrim's Progress, Donne & Herbert, Bunyan, Walton
- 40. English Poetry 1: Chaucer to Gray
- 41. English Poetry 2: Collins to Fitzgerald
- 42. English Poetry 3: Tennyson to Whitman
Epic, Romance & Myth
- 13. Aeneid, Virgil
- 14. Don Quixote, Part 1, Cervantes
- 16. The Thousand and One Nights
- 17. Folklore and Fable, Aesop, Grimm, Anderson
- 20. The Divine Comedy, Dante
- 21. I Promessi Sposi, Manzoni
- 22. The Odyssey, Homer
- 49. Epic and Saga
Anthologies & Prefaces
Shelf of Fiction: English & American Novelists
- Fiction01 – Henry Fielding 1
- Fiction02 – Henry Fielding 2
- Fiction03 – Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen
- Fiction04 – Sir Walter Scott
- Fiction05 – William Makepeace Thackeray 1
- Fiction06 – William Makepeace Thackeray 2
- Fiction07 – Charles Dickens 1
- Fiction08 – Charles Dickens 2
- Fiction09 – George Eliot
- Fiction10 – Hawthorne, Irving, Poe, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Hale
- Fiction11 – Henry James, Jr.
Shelf of Fiction: Continental & Russian Novelists
- Fiction12 – Victor Hugo
- Fiction13 – Balzac, Sand, de Musset, Daudet, de Maupassant
- Fiction14 – Johann Wolfgang Goethe
- Fiction15 – Goethe, Keller, Storm, Fontane
- Fiction16 – Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy 1
- Fiction17 – Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy 2
- Fiction18 – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Fiction19 – Ivan Turgenev
- Fiction20 – Valera, Bjørnson, Kielland