Great books of the western world 2nd edition, compared to the first edition

When Britannica issued a new edition of the Great Books of the Western World in 1990, they made a lot of changes. Let's discover the differences: cuts, additions, and new translations. Note: I skipped over a few of the English language authors like Shakespeare and Milton.
26:10 The 20th century additions, none of which were part of the first set.
31:48 Recap of major changes between sets.
The following sites cover changes to the contents:
Baquet's Guide to the World's Classics: www.theworldsc...
Comparison of Two Editions of the Great Books of the Western World, a web page by Alan Nicoll: www.angelfire....
Bureau of Public Secrets, Table of Contents, GBWW, 2nd edition: www.bopsecrets...

[@detronbrian]

I think the coffee table book is worth owning. I have two copies of it. It contains an "Author to Author" index and and "Author to Idea" index. I own the first edition, and two sets of the second edition. Another thing in the first edition that was removed in the second edition was in volume 3 (Syntopicon Vol II) and it was about 80 pages titled "The Principles and Methods of Syntopical Construction" The First edition had over 32,300 Pages and the Second had over 37,800 pages Thanks for making this video, I enjoyed it very much.

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Thanks for the info and advice! Did they preserve Hutchins’ original essay or edit it?

[@detronbrian]

@@greatbooksbigideas Are you speaking about the Great Conversation? I am pretty sure it was edited, but I have not actually verified that. I read the 1st edition volume 1 "The great Conversation", but have not read that part of the coffee table book. One minor improvement that I did to one of my second edition sets, was to add a ribbon book mark. I did it in a non destructive way.

[@greatbooksbigideas]

@@detronbrian Yes, that is the essay I wondered about.

[@asdisskagen6487]

Thank you for this! I have the older, original set and was curious as to what the differences were. This was a lovely video indicating the changes in translators and additional material from the 20th century that I may want to add to my list of future reading.

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Glad it was helpful!

[@kabutler70]

I have the original set that you have, I bought it back in 2009 off someone online, I have seen a new set of the second edition on eBay selling for 1500.00. I would love to acquire it but I would probably end up divorced since I have over 2000 books in my library and my wife is fed up with so many books😳

[@greatbooksbigideas]

I got very lucky with the 2nd edition set about 12 years ago. Found a 90% complete set on craigslist for $80. It took a few years and a lot of patience to acquire the missing volumes from eBay, Amazon, ABEbooks at decent price points. Who knows, you might get lucky too! One option that might keep your wife happy is to just fill in selected volumes from the 2nd edition. Thanks for the comment!

[@stretmediq]

I have the first edition I also have the Great Books Program, Gateway to the Great Books and all the Great Ideas Today which is the yearbook. I keep saying I'm going to get the 2nd edition but I haven't gotten around to it. I also have all the Harvard Classics

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Cool. How do you like the Harvard Classics compared to the GBWW?

[@stretmediq]

@greatbooksbigideas I think they compliment each other very well. The GB is a little more philosophical and has more science and mathematics while the HC is more focused on literature and though it has some science it doesn't have any mathematics. The HC also has more excerpts rather than complete works although the complete works it does have are presented more closely to the original imo for example the GB will have more prose translations compared to the HC which has more verse

[@ForbiddenDerivative]

I bought a 1st edition set alongside the 10 volumes of the "Great Ideas Program" a few years ago (I was 33 and started getting a taste for much better literature), followed by the Gateway set. As much as I appreciate the additions to the 2nd edition, I wouldn't consider the additional works justification for another purchase. If I was ever curious, I would probably purchase those works separately (I already own a handful of those additions already). I'm glad Adler kept the translations of the Russian works intact, and the change of the Homer translation from Butler to Lattimore was a significant improvement. I was also elated at the inclusion of Nietzsche, although I would have considered "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" a more accessible work for those new to his corpus. One question pertains to the reading lists. In the original "Great Conversation" volume, there was a 10 year reading plan at the back. I was wondering If such a plan exists in the 2nd edition to account for the new works. PS. Thanks for the video, it's great to see other people who enjoy discussing the Great Books. Unfortunately, they have fallen out of favour over the decades and exist as a mere relic of a bygone era.

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Glad you enjoyed the video! That's a great question, but I can't answer it, because I don't have that Great Conversation volume (the one that's the size of a coffee table book). If the reading list exists, it would be in that. Perhaps another viewer can let us know!

[@nualafaolin7129]

Thanks for a great overview! I’d love a physical set, incredible how they managed to fit such huge books like Middlemarch, War & Peace etc in! They’re hard to get here though in Ireland, so I went the digital way, Internet Archive has downloadable pdfs (and epub, but they’re bad), so at least I can highlight and take notes. It’s the first edition though, so seeing this was great to fill in the blanks! 😊

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Thanks! Yes, I've heard from a few overseas viewers who say that these sets weren't widely available. I guess it was mostly an American venture. I want to do a video soon talking about the format of the books. Opinions vary a lot on that. It IS incredible how much shelf space is saved! Cheers.

[@guesswhatilearnedtoday1087]

Quite a few of the additions to the 1990 set are in the yearbooks (The Great Ideas Today) They range from 1961 to 1998. Like the sets, the older years are easier to get your hands on, but if you buy online there is a good chance they will send you the wrong year. The good news is that the yearbooks sell for very cheap and it is not too much of a loss if you get a wrong year. I almost have a full set. Each of the volumes starts with a discussion on some kind of social issue, sometimes still relevant, sometimes dated, and sometimes comically dated. Then they do a broad overview of science, literature, philosophy, etc for the year, once again ranging from still relevant to comically dated. After that there is some kind of article about one of the Great Books or their writers. Finally there are several additions of the Great Books.

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Thanks for the info! Yes, I have a complete set of The Great Ideas Today, and they're terrific. I'll be covering them on the channel soon.

[@dorothysatterfield3699]

"The Confessions of St. Augustine" was translated by R. S. Pine Coffin? Did I hear that correctly?

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Yup! I did a double take myself!

[@RocketKirchner]

Hold the phone - no Milton - paradise Lost ? No crime and punishment ? No pascal Pensees?

[@greatbooksbigideas]

Paradise Lost IS in the 2nd edition, as is Pascal Pensees. No Crime and Punishment, alas!

[@LibroParadiso-ep4zt]

First women authors took this long to join the club?! Madness:)