I own "Great Books of the Western World (60 vols.)". In my library, only 59 volumes are shown. I can't find the first volume, "The Great Conversation".
Anything clarification appreciated.
Try to sort by series. I suspect you just forgot to tag one of the volumes with gbww.
However, the Great Conversation seems to be missing indeed.
According to Wikipedia, volume 1 should contain it. Great Books of the Western World – Wikipedia
Volume 1 of the Logos edition contains the Syntopicon though.
The dead tree version sold on Amazon has the same volumes as the Logos edition, starting with the Syntopicon, and completely lacking the Great Conversation.
81PhrTyEZ8L._SL1500_.jpg (1125×1500) (media-amazon.com)
So what is happening here?
Here are the Logos volume numbers in brackets the volume numbers according to Wikipedia, and the authors.
1 ( 2) The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas I 2 ( 3) The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas II 3 ( 4) Homer 4 ( 5) Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes 5 ( 6) Herodotus, Thucydides 6 ( 7) Plato 7 ( 8) Aristotle I 8 ( 9) Aristotle II 9 (10) Hippocrates, Galen10 (11) Euclid, Archimedes, Nicomachus11 (12) Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus12 (13) Virgil13 (14) Plutarch14 (15) Tacitus15 (16) Ptomely, Copernicus, Kepler16 (18) Augustine17 (19) Aquinas I18 (20) Aquinas II19 (21/22) Dante, Chaucer20 (20) Calvin21 (23) Machiavelli, Hobbes22 (24) Rabelais23 (25) Erasmus, Montaigne24 (26) Shakespeare I25 (27) Shakespeare II26 (28) Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey27 (29) Cervantes28 (30/31) Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza29 (32) Milton30 (33) Pascal31 (31) Molière, Racine32 (34) Newton, Huygens33 (35) Locke, Berkeley, Hume34 (34) Swift, Voltaire, Diderot35 (38) Montesquieu, Rousseau36 (39) Adam Smith37 (40) Gibbon I38 (41) Gibbon II39 (42) Kant40 (43) American State Papers, Federalist, J.S. Mill41 (44) Boswell42 (45) Lavoisier, Faraday43 (43) Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche44 (44) Tocqueville45 (45) Goethe, Balzac46 (46) Austen, George Eliot47 (47) Dickens48 (48) Melville, Twain49 (49) Darwin50 (50) Marx51 (51) Tolstoy52 (52) Dostoevsky, Ibsen53 (53) William James54 (54) Freud55 (55) 20th Century Philosophy and Religion56 (56) 20th Century Natural Science57 (57) 20th Century Social Science I58 (58) 20th Century Social Science II59 (59) 20th Century Imaginative Literature I60 (60) 20th Century Imaginative Literature II
In short: the Wikipedia article is a mess. Don't trust it.
Could it be it wasn't meant to be included? I have the dead tree version of this, and The Great Conversation came with it, but it's more of an illustrated "coffee table book"...
Try searching for "The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas". I think this is the volume you are looking for
Mine shows 60 books but none are named “The Great Conversation.” Maybe it’s a different edition?
DAL
Look at the Amazon photo that I shared. The Logos edition is an exact match.
A pdf version is available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Conversation
https://web.archive.org/web/20141122210931/http://www.britannica.com/blogs/wp-content/pdf/The_Great_Conversation.pdf
I have 60 volumes too, but there is no Great Conversation book. But there is no book of that title in the list of books on the Logos product page either. It seems like we got what Logos offered...
That helps, now there are 60 volumes. "English Minor Poems; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes; Areopagitica" was missing the community tag "gbww"
.
Seems to be true. Thanks to all who contributed to clear this up.
I am not sure if youve found your answer. I just purchased the 54 volume set. My volume 1 is "The Great Conversastion." My set is the 13th printing of the 1952 version. Printed in 1988. Volume 1-3 is the Introductory volumes. 1. The great Conversation, 2. The great Ideas 1, 3. The great Ideas II. The following are the remaining volumes of the 54 volume set:
4. Homer
5. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes
6. Herodotus, Thucydides
7. Plato
8. Aristotle I
9. Aristotle II
10. Hippocrates, Galen
11. Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Nicomachus
12. Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius
13. Virgil
14. Plutarch
15. Tacitus
16. Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler
17. Plotinus
18. Augustine
19. Thomas Aquinas I
20. Thomas Aquinas II
21. Dante
22. Chaucer
23. Machiavelli, Hobbes
24. Rabelais
25. Montaigne
26. Shakespeare 1
27. Shakespeare II
28. Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey
29. Cervantes
30. Francis Bacon
31. Descartes, Spinoza
32. Milton
33. Pascal
34. Newton, Huygens
35. Locke, Berkely, Hume
36. Swift, Sterne
37. Fielding
38. Montesquieu, Rousseau
39. Adam Smith
40. Gibbon I
41. Gibbon II
42. Kant
43. American State Papers, The Federalist, J.S. Mill
44. Boswell
45. Lavoisier, Fourier, Faraday
46. Hegel
47. Goethe
48. Melville
49. Darwin
50. Marx, Engels
51. Tolstoy
52. Dostoevsky
53. William James
54. Freud.
This was the complete set at the time of release. I cant recall where i read it, but apparently some of the content in "The great convesation" was considered controversal and wasnt agreed with. So in the later edition/version of the GBWW, it was removed and the volumes renumbered, as well as the addition of 20th centruy works.
However I will add that within the pages of "The great conversation", the author lists some valid reasons why newer works were not added to the volume. He did provide a list of 20th Century "Great book" authors in Vol3 Syntopicon on pages 813-887. I dont have my copy with me as i type this, and im sure my Syntopicon II is different than your 60 volume version.
I just did a side by side comparison of the different versions.
1990 version had the following works removed:
The Great Conversation, Apollonius, Stern, Fielding, Fourier, and Engels.
The pre 1990 version did not include:
Plotinus, Calvin, Erasmus, Moliere, Racne, Voltarie, Diderot, Kierkegaard, Nietzshe, Tocqueville, Balzac, Dickens, Twain, Ibsen, 20th Century Philosophy and Religion, 20th Century Natural Science, 20th Century Social Science I, 20th Century Social Science II, 20th Century Imaginative Literature I, 20th Century Imaginative Literature II.
Thanks, @Colt Barker! A great job! And welcome to the forums!
