Annotated Bibliography of The Well-Educated Mind List

Over the next year, I will be creating an annotated bibliography of all of the books I read in the Well-Educated Mind, doing one to two at a time. It will be good review for me and hopefully helpful for someone on the same journey.

Ancients (15)

1) 2000 BC: Epic of Gilgamesh/Ferry/Poetry


I really enjoyed this. It is very approachable and readable. I also read illustrated versions to my kids that helped me imagine in my own reading. Visual images often make reading more enjoyable for me. It spoils it for others. It is a personal preference for all. 


These were my favorite children's versions with lush and beautiful illustrations:


retold and illustrated by Ludmila Zeman













800 Iliad (*+ T)/ Homer/Lattimore/ Poetry
800 Odyssey(*+ T) /Homer/Lattimore/Poetry
600 Greek Lyrics/ Lattimore/Poetry
458 Agamemnon(*+ T)/ Aeschylus/Drama
450 Oedipus Rex(*+ T)/ Sophocles/Drama
441 Histories/ Herodotus/ History
431 Medea/ Euripedes/ Drama
400 Birds/ (Clouds – T) /Aristophanes/ Drama
400 Peloponnesian War(*+ )/Thucydides/ History
375 Republic(*+)/ Plato/ History
330 Poetics(+)/ Aristotle/Drama 
65 Odes of Horace/Poetry
AD
100 Greek Lives/Roman Lives by Plutarch

Medieval Times (19 out of 19)

400 Confessions*+ T Augustine Fitzgerald Autobio 
426 City of God+ Augustine History
731 Ecclesiastical History of the English People Bede History
1000 Beowulf* Poetry
1300 Inferno*+ Poetry 
1300's Everyman Drama
1350 Sir Gawain & the Green Knight* Poetry
1386 Canterbury Tales* Chaucer Poetry
1430 The Book of Margery Kempe Autobio
1513 Prince*+ Machiavelli History
1516 Utopia* Sir Thomas More History
1564 Sonnets Shakespeare Poetry 
1580 Essays+ Montaigne Autobio
1588 Life of Teresa of Avila Autobio
1588 Doctor Faustus Marlowe Drama
1592 Richard III Shakespeare Drama
1594 Midsummer's Nights Dream* Shakespeare Drama
1600 Hamlet* Shakespeare Drama

1600 Poems* Donne Poetry (British)

Early Modern -1600-1850 (33 out of 33)

1605 Don Quixote*+ Cervantes Penguin Novel

1611 Psalms KJV Poetry

1641 Meditations+ Descartes Autobio 
1667 Paradise Lost*+ Milton Poetry

1666 Grace Abounding Bunyon Autobio 
1669 Tartuffe Moliere Drama
1679 Pilgrim's Progress* Bunyon Novel
1682 Narrative of Captivity & Restoration(T) Rowlandson Autobio
1690 True End Civil Government Locke History
1700 Way of the World Congreve Drama 
1726 Gulliver's Travels* Swift Novel 
1754 History of England, V.5 Hume History
1757 Songs of Innocence and Experience by Blake/Poetry (British)
1762 Social Contract+ Rousseau History
1773 She Stoops to Conquer Goldsmith Drama
1776 Common Sense (T) Paine Dover History
1776 Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire Gibbon Wormsley(Ab) History
1777 School of Scandal Sheridan Drama

1781 Confessions* Rousseau Autobio 
1791 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (T)
1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women+ Wollstonecraft History (British)
1798 Lyrical Ballads* Wordsworth, Cooleridge Poetry (British)
1813 Pride & Prejudice*+ Austen Novel 
1819 Odes* & Poems Keats Poetry (British)
Longfellow Poetry (American)
Tennyson Poetry (British)
Whitman Poetry (American)
1835 Democracy in America* Tocqueville History
1838 Oliver Twist Dickens Novel
1847 Jane Eyre Bronte Novel
1848 The Comunist Manifesto+ Marx&Engel History
1850 The Scarlet Letter* Hawthorne Novel

Modern History (1850 to present)

 ( 87 out of 87)

Rossetti Poetry (British)
1851 Moby-Dick/Melville/Novel
Uncle Tom's Cabin/Stowe/Novel 
1854 Walden/Thoreau/Autobio
1857 Madame Bovary* Flaubert Novel
1860 Civilization of Renaissance Burckhardt History
1861 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Jacobs Autobio
1866 Crime & Punishment Dostoyevsky Novel

1850- 1866 * Dickinson Poetry (American)
1872 Dunbar Poetry (American)
1877 Anna Karenina* Tolstoy Novel
1878 Return of the Native Hardy Novel 
1878 Sandburg Poetry (American)
1879 Doll's House Ibsen Drama
1881 Life & Times/Narrative of Frederick Douglass * T Autobio
1881 The Portrait of a Lady* James Novel 
1883 Williams Poetry (American)
1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* Twain
1895 The Red Badge of Courage Crane Novel
1899 Importance of Being Earnest Wilde Drama
1901 Up From Slavery Washington Autobio
1902 Heart of Darkness* Conrad Novel
1902 Hughes Poetry (American)
1903 Souls of Black Folk DuBois History (American)
1904 Cherry Orchard Chekov Drama
1904 The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism Weber History (German)
1905 House of Mirth Wharton Novel 
1907 Auden Poetry (American)
1908 Ecce Homo Nietzsche Autobio (German)
1913 Poems* Frost Poetry (American)
1921 Queen Victoria Stachey History
1922 Larkin Poetry (British)
1924 St. Joan Shaw Drama
1925 Mein Kampf Hitler Autobio
The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald Novel
Mrs. Dolloway Woolf Novel
The Trial* Kafka Novel 
1929 An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth Gandhi Autobio
1932-1963 Sylvia Plath Poetry (American)

(1865-1939) William Butler Yeats (Irish)

Auto of Alice B. Toklas Stein Autobio

Born 1934 Mark Strand Poetry (American)

Born 1929 Adrienne Rich Poetry (American)

1935 Murder in Cathedral T.S. Eliot Drama
1937 The Road to Wigan Pier Orwell History
1938 Our Town Wilder Drama
1939 Seamus Heaney Poetry (Irish)
The New England Mind Miller History 

1940 Long Day's Journey into Night O'Neill Drama
Native Son Wright Novel
1940 Robert Pinsky Poetry (American)
1942 Stranger Camus Novel
1944 No Exit Sartre Drama
1947 A Streetcar Named Desire Williams Drama 
1948 Seven Story Mountain Merton Autobio
1949 1984 Orwell Novel 
Death of a Salesman Miller Drama
1952 Invisible Man Ellison Novel
Waiting for Godot Beckett Drama

1955 The Great Crash Galbraith History 

Surprised by Joy C.S. Lewis Autobio

1956 Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) Poetry (American) (DO NOT RECOMMEND ICK!)

1956 Seize the Day Bellow Novel
1959 The Longest Day Ryan History
1960 A Man for All Seasons Bolt Drama
1963 The Feminine Mystique Frieden History
1965 The Autobiography of + Malcolm X Autobio
1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude Marquez Novel
Rosencrantz & Guildenstein Stoppard Drama
1972 If on a Winter's Night a Traveler Calvino Novel 
1973 Journal of Solitude Sarton Autobio
Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitsyn Autobio
1974 Roll, Jordan, Roll Genovese History

1974 Equus Shaffer Drama 
1977 Born Again Colson Autobio
Song of Solomon Morrison Novel
1978 Distant Mirror Tuchman History

1978 Jan Kenyon (1947-1975) Poetry (American)
1982 Hunger of Memory Rodriguez Autobio
1985 White Noise Delillo Novel

1985 Rita Dove (1952- )Poetry (American)
1987 All the President's Men Woodward & Bernstein History
1988 Battle Cry of Freedom McPherson History
1989 Road from Coorain Conway Autobio
1990 Possession Byatt Novel

A Midwife's Tale Ballard Autobio
1992 The End of History & the Last Man Fukuyama History
1995 All Rivers Run to the Sea Wiesel Autobio

(*ITC, +D overlap, T)

ITC= Invitation to the Classics D=Denby's Great Books T = Thelma's Library