Volume 1 covers literature of Western Culture through the Renaissance including:
*Masterpieces of the Ancient World: Old Testament; Homer; Aeschylus; Thucydides; Sophocles; Euripedes; Aristophanes; Plato; Aristotle; Lucretius; Cicero; Virgil; New Testament; Petronius; St. Augustine
* Masterpieces of the Middles Ages: Dante; Boccaccio; Sir Gawain; Chaucer; Everyman
* Masterpieces of the Renaissance: Petrarch; Erasmus, Castiglione; Machiavelli; Rabelais; Montaigne; Cervantes; Marlowe; Shakespeare; Donne; de la Barca; Milton