Voyages and Travels

Author names not noted above: Sir Francis Drake, Francis Petty, Walter Biggs, Edward Hayes, Sir Walter Raleigh

Editor name not noted above: Philip Nichols

Translator names not noted above: G.C. Macaulay, Thomas Gordon

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 XXXIII features essential writings of ethnography and exploration. In their own voices, hear:

Herodotus, "the father of story-tellers," on the gods of ancient Egypt
Tacitus, in the "front rank" of ancient historians, on the Teutonic tribes of the Roman era
Sir Francis Drake, "the greatest of the naval adventurers of England of the time of Elizabeth," relates his historic 16th-century journey around the Straits of Magellan
Sir Walter Raleigh, "courtier and statesman, soldier and sailor, scientist and man of letters," tells of his 1594 discovery of Guiana
and others.