Books published by Cosimo Classics

As outspoken in his day as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens are today, ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL (1833-1899) was a notorious radical whose uncompromising views on religion and slavery (they were bad, in his opinion), women's suffrage (a good idea, he believed), and other contentious matters of his era made him a wildly popular orator and critic of American culture and public life.Legendary as a speaker-he memorized his speeches and could talk for hours without notes-and as a proponent of freethought, Ingersoll is an American original whose words still ring with truth and power today. His most important works are gathered in this 12-volume collected edition, first published posthumously in 1901.Volume VI features Ingersoll's "discussions" on:¿ "The Christian Religion"¿ "Rome or Reason?"¿ "Is Divorce Wrong?"¿ "Is Corporal Punishment Degrading?"¿ and more

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 LI, the final volume, features 60 fascinating lectures on the wide range of knowledge the series covers-history, poetry, natural science, philosophy, biography, prose fiction, criticism and the essay, education, political science, drama, voyages and travel, and religion-that put this extraordinary survey of human knowledge in context. They are the collective capstone on a bookshelf reading course unparalleled in comprehensiveness and authority.