The sixteen paperback Readers

The complete Reader set

Homer to Tolkien, on one shelf

All sixteen volumes of the Old Western Culture Reader Series: the greatest books of Western civilization from Homer’s Iliad to the novels of the nineteenth century, in beautifully typeset, single-column volumes. One Reader for each unit of the curriculum, and a great-books library that stands on its own.

16 volumes · about 10,700 pages · 6 × 9 in. · paperback or casebound hardback · the eBooks included

You’re buyingOld Western Culture Readers · The complete setSixteen paperbacks, with the eBooks
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Want a few, not all? Buy individual Readers, $32 paperback or $45 hardback

Year One · The Greeks

Vols. 1–4

Year Two · The Romans

Vols. 5–8

Year Three · Christendom

Vols. 9–12

Year Four · Early Moderns

Vols. 13–16
What’s inside

The works, year by year

Year One · The Greeks

Vol. 1 · The Epics

The Iliad Homer · prose rendering by Wesley J. Callihan after Lang, Leaf and Myers (1883)
The Odyssey Homer · prose rendering by Wesley J. Callihan after Butcher and Lang (1879)

Vol. 2 · Drama and Lyric

Aeschylus The Oresteia
Sophocles Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone
Euripides The Trojan Women; Medea
Aristophanes The Frogs
Sappho, Pindar, Theocritus selected poems
Hesiod Works and Days
Quintus of Smyrna The Fall of Troy

Vol. 3 · The Histories

Herodotus The Histories
Thucydides The History of the Peloponnesian War
Xenophon Anabasis (The Persian Expedition)

Vol. 4 · The Philosophers

Plato Apology; Crito; Phaedo; Phaedrus; Republic
Aristotle Metaphysics (I, XII); Nicomachean Ethics (I, VIII); Poetics
Year Two · The Romans

Vol. 5 · The Aeneid

Vergil The Aeneid
Ovid Metamorphoses (I, VIII, X, XI, XV)
Lucretius De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
Lucan Pharsalia
Statius Thebaid

Vol. 6 · The Historians

Livy History of Rome
Sallust The War with Jugurtha; The War with Catiline
Julius Caesar The Gallic Wars
Tacitus The Annals
Plutarch Lives
Cicero Against Verres; Against Antony; On Duties
Suetonius The Lives of the Twelve Caesars
Pliny and Trajan Correspondence
Quintilian Institutes of Oratory

Vol. 7 · Early Christianity

The Didache
Clement of Rome First Epistle of Clement
Ignatius The Letters
Polycarp Letter to the Philippians
Athenagoras A Plea for the Christians
The Epistle to Diognetus
Justin Martyr The First Apology
Irenaeus Against Heresies
Clement of Alexandria Exhortation to the Greeks
Eusebius History of the Church

Vol. 8 · Nicene Christianity

Athanasius On the Incarnation; The Life of St. Anthony
John Chrysostom Paschal Homily; Baptismal Instructions
Basil the Great On the Holy Spirit
Gregory Nazianzen Funeral Oration
Augustine Confessions; The City of God
Boethius The Consolation of Philosophy
Year Three · Christendom

Vol. 9 · Early Medievals

Benedict The Rule of Saint Benedict
Procopius Wars of Justinian
Gregory of Tours History of the Franks
Gregory the Great Book of Pastoral Rule; The Dialogues
Patrick The Confession; Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus
Adomnán The Life of St. Columba
Anonymous The Voyage of Brendan
Anonymous Beowulf
Bede Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Einhard Life of Charlemagne
Asser Life of Alfred
John of Damascus The Fount of Knowledge

Vol. 10 · Defense of the Faith

Anselm of Canterbury Proslogion; Monologion
Geoffrey of Monmouth History of the Kings of Britain
Jacobus de Voragine The Golden Legend
Geoffrey de Villehardouin The Conquest of Constantinople
Jean de Joinville The Life of St. Louis

Vol. 11 · The Medieval Mind

Thomas Aquinas Compendium of Theology (abridged)
Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

Vol. 12 · The Reformation

Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales
Boniface VIII Clericis Laicos; Unam Sanctam
Marsilius of Padua Defensor Pacis
The Council of Constance Sacrosancta; Frequens
Erasmus Julius Exclusus
Martin Luther Ninety-Five Theses; To the Christian Nobility; The Babylonian Captivity of the Church; The Freedom of a Christian
Leo X Exsurge Domine
Michael Sattler The Schleitheim Articles
Philip Melanchthon Apology of the Augsburg Confession
John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Council of Trent The Decree of Trent
Ignatius of Loyola Spiritual Exercises
Zacharias Ursinus Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism
Church of England Book of Common Prayer (1559)
John Foxe Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
Field and Wilcox An Admonition to Parliament
Richard Hooker The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene; Amoretti; Epithalamion
Year Four · Early Moderns

Vol. 13 · Rise of England

William Shakespeare Sonnets 3, 55, 60, 73, 103, 106; King Lear; Richard III; The Merchant of Venice
John Donne A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning; Holy Sonnets X and XIV; Meditation XVII
George Herbert Redemption; The Collar; Love (III)
Andrew Marvell To His Coy Mistress
John Milton On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity; On His Blindness; On the Late Massacre in Piedmont; Paradise Lost

Vol. 14 · Poetry and Politics

Alexander Pope Essay on Criticism; The Iliad (excerpt); Ode on Solitude; Essay on Man
Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France; selected letters and speeches
Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America (selections)
Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Shelley selected poems
Poe, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Rossetti, Hopkins selected poems
C. S. Lewis De Descriptione Temporum

Vol. 15 · The Enlightenment

Immanuel Kant What is Enlightenment?
Galileo Galilei The Sidereal Messenger; Letter to Benedetto Castelli; Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
René Descartes Discourse on Method; Meditations on First Philosophy
Isaac Newton Principia (selections); Opticks (Queries 28 and 31)
David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (IV, V, XII)
Thomas Reid An Inquiry into the Human Mind (selections)

Vol. 16 · The Novels

Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice
Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol
Fyodor Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov (selections from Book V)
Anton Chekhov The Bet
C. S. Lewis De Descriptione Temporum
The Readers on a shelf

Every home library is a citadel of knowledge and wisdom, delight and experience, carefully curated for future generations. Sixteen volumes on the shelf is where many families begin.

Good to know

Questions

Do the eBooks come with the set?

Yes. Every printed Reader includes its eBook in the Roman Roads app.

Do I need the set to take the course?

No. Each year or unit of the course includes its Reader eBooks, and your own editions work too. The set is for families who want the books in print, on the shelf, for every student who follows.

Can I mix paperback and hardback?

Buy the volumes you want individually: $32.00 paperback, $45.00 hardback.