GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD. 54 VOLUMES (COMPLETE SET)

Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 1982. 54 volumes, complete set, size royal 8vo., gilt decoration to spines with gilt title labels, authors include Homer, Plato, Dante, Chaucer, Galileo, Shakespeare, Kant, Herman Melville, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud etc, some titles have some slight fading to gilt foil lettering & devices on spines, to be expected, light markings to few volumes, some spotting to top edges, altogether an attractive set.  condition: very good.

The editors had three criteria for including a book in the series drawn from Western Civilization: the book must have been relevant to contemporary matters, and not only important in its historical context; it must be rewarding to re-read repeatedly with respect to liberal education; and it must be a part of "the great conversation about the great ideas.

 The purposes that the editors had in mind were to render the reader as an intellectually rounded man or woman familiar with the Western canon and knowledgeable of the Great Ideas visited in the "Great Conversation" over the course of three millennia.

The Great Books of the Western World were presented at a publication party in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The president of the University of Chicago said in the keynote speech,

"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 sets of books were given to Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, and to the incumbent U.S. President. 

                                                                                             Please allow R450 for courier or collection by arrangement.