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Following more than a decade of calculations and writing, a German published his complete theory of relativity, which subsequent experiments would prove correct and which many scholars have since called ‘the biggest leap of the scientific imagination in history’ – ideas that continue to fuel inventions and dreams.
2. Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne
This extraordinary story from the grandfather of science fiction has continued to grow in popularity. Jules Verne’s underground adventure was based on the cutting-edge scientific discoveries of his day.
3. The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
With his debut novel – a dystopian vision of the world in the year 802,701 – H.G. Wells popularised the fantasy of time travel and established his reputation as the father of science fiction.
4. Lives of the Artists -Vasari
Lives of the Artists was the first book to examine the history of art. The analysis that Vasari presented is still used today, and his book is an unparalleled source of information about the golden age of Italian art.
5. The Republic -Plato
A masterpiece of philosophy and political thought, which asks questions about society that are still debated today. Plato’s imagined conversation about the nature of justice in a city republic was inspired by his own traumatic experience of state injustice.
6. The Prince Machiavelli
Machiavelli’s political treatise on the art of getting and keeping power was based on his own observations of the machinations of kings, princes and popes. It caused controversy with its unethical recommendations, but five hundred years later it is still widely read by aspiring politicians.
7. The Iliad and The Odyssey Homer
Two of the greatest epic poems were composed three thousand years ago by a mysterious blind man in ancient Greece. These seminal works of Western literature tell the heroic stories of characters caught up in a city’s brutal siege and a warrior’s long and perilous journey home.
8. The Divine Comedy Dante
The greatest literary creation of the Middle Ages is a huge allegorical poem that envisions a trip through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. Based on its breathtaking scope, detail and divine inspiration, critics have called it a language equivalent to a Gothic cathedral.
9. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly -Spheres Copernicus
The Renaissance astronomer and mathematician waited until he was safely on his deathbed before publishing his book that would literally change the world’s place in the universe. His heliocentric theory was credited with starting the Scientific Revolution in Western culture, its implications convincing modern thinkers, from Marx to Einstein and Freud, that man and his superstitions no longer ruled as supreme lord of the universe.
10. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire -Edward Gibbon
A groundbreaking description of the economic, cultural and political collapse of ancient Rome, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is regarded as the first modern historical work. It consumed Gibbon’s later life and continues to influence both the academic approach and the writing style of historians today.
11. Shakespeare’s First Folio
The publication of Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, seven years after his death, rescued some of his most iconic works from oblivion and established his reputation as the preeminent dramatist in the English language. Four hundred years later, his supremacy continues.
12. The Cat in the Hat -Dr. Seuss
The book that broke the mould in young children’s literature. Setting out to write an alternative to ‘pallid primers with abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls’, Dr. Seuss gave us a world of fun seen through children’s eyes.
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