Features
A perfect way to read
- Seamless page-by-page reading—The software simulates reading a book by displaying the text one page at a time. This avoids the need to scroll up and down, and makes
reading at your computer as easy as ever.
Take a tour through the interface. - Personalise the display—Choose the reading settings most comfortable for you.
- Export and print—If you'd rather read on-the-go, export the texts to your PDA or portable device, or print them quickly and easily.
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The Read Panel. Enlarge or tour the interface. |
The Browse Panel. Enlarge or tour the interface. |
An extensive selection of texts
- More than 1000 texts by almost 200
different authors are included on the CD. Each text is sectionalised (into
chapters, acts, parts, volumes, and so on) for quick navigation. All texts are
complete and unabridged.
View a list of all included texts.
- A selection of texts in literature (English, American, continental and world literature), philosophy, history, and political theory—we have selected key texts in each of these areas to provide a survey of the major works in the Western intellectual canon. Explore the world's first history text, Herodotus' Histories; Western civilisation's first philosophical treatises by Plato and Aristotle; classic works in the social sciences such as Darwin's On the Origin of Species; the literature of the most important periods in the development of Western culture, such as the renaissance, the enlightenment, and the early modern era. Read the world's greatest books by the world's greatest thinkers and writers: Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, William Blake, and hundreds of others.
- A selection of genres—hundreds of complete novels and short stories across all major genres (children's, biography, fantasy, historical fiction, humour, mystery, crime, romance), many different collections of poems (love poems, inspirational poems, epic and narrative poems, religious poems) and numerous complete plays—all by the world's best and most respected writers from the past two and a half thousand years.
- A variety of sources—many texts are sourced from the public domain, but some have been produced (scanned, proofread, and published) independently by the Classics Network. These texts are exclusive to the Network and are not available elsewhere.
- Searching—Search either a particular text or all of a particular author's works by keyword or phrase. Thousands of pages of text are searched instantly, and the search results allow you to immediately jump to the relevant position in the text. The search feature is the perfect way to explore authors' treatment of particular topics: learn what Plato said on 'justice' or Shakespeare on 'love'.
- Bookmarks—Mark particular places in texts and add notes and comments about them. Return to marked positions instantly.
Learn more about bookmarks and quotes.
- Personal quotations library—Select an extract from a text and add it
as a bookmark to build your own personal quotations library! Whenever you find a memorable or inspiring line of poetry or phrase of prose, add it to your library and you'll be able to refer back to it whenever you like. Very helpful for students collecting relevant quotes on a particular topic, or memorising notable quotes for exams.
Learn more about bookmarks and quotes.
- Reading manager—The software automatically keeps track of your progress in every text, letting you know where you left off reading and which sections and chapters you've already read and have yet to read.
- Subscriptions—Sign up to read any of the texts through our Classics Digests program, the new way to read classic literature. Select an author or text and the Digests program will email you an easily-readable portion of the text every day. Digests are fully
customisable, allowing you the flexibility of reading at your own pace. Purchase of the CD entitles you to a free Classics
Lifetime Membership, which allows you to subscribe to an unlimited number of Digests, and to receive Digest emails advertisement-free.
Learn more about subscriptions.
- Format: PC CD-ROM
- ISBN: 0-9751255-0-8
- Publisher: Classics Publications, a division of the Classics Network, a leading online publisher of information in the humanities.
- System requirements: Pentium-class PC (100MHz or higher), with 32MB RAM, a Super VGA monitor, running any Windows operating system with Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher installed.
- We are not currently able to supply Macintosh or Unix versions of the software. We are, however, hoping to launch versions for other platforms in the future - if you're interested, send us a note so we can keep you informed.