In 1910, Collier began printing The Harvard Classics in a limited quantity set called the Renaissance edition. This beautifully bound set includes 10 different bindings consisting of reproductions of the artistic bindings of Royal Monarchs of Europe from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. There are ten different colors, five of each of the total 50 volume set. 

This set is in overall good to fair condition, with some volumes showing more spine fading than others, hinges solid, gilt top edge intact with minimal wear. Some shelf wear to the heads of spines. Some of the last color set 45-50 have the usual very dark tone and make the titles and volume numbers difficult to read. 

A rarity with this set is a mis-color print of Volume 40. That volume should have been in the dark olive color and cover design that normally includes 36, 27, 38, 39 and 40. This set has the rare misprint where volume 40 is the tan color and cover design reserved for Volumes 41, 42, 43, 44 and 45. 

Only 1000 sets of the Renaissance Edition were printed. The number of sets with this mis-color mistake is unknown. 

Titles:

Vol. 1: Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, William Penn

Vol. 2. Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius

Vol. 3. Bacon, Milton's Prose, Thomas Browne

Vol. 4. Complete Poems in English, Milton

Vol. 5. Essays and English Traits, Emerson

Vol. 6. Poems and Songs, Burns

Vol. 7. The Confessions of St. Augustine, The Imitation of Christ

Vol. 8. Nine Greek Dramas

Vol. 9. Letters and Treatises of Cicero and Pliny

Vol. 10. Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

Vol. 11. Origin of Species, Darwin

Vol. 12. Plutarch's Lives

Vol. 13. Aeneid, Virgil

Vol. 14. Don Quixote, Part 1, Cervantes

Vol. 15. Bunyan & Walton

Vol. 16. The Thousand and One Nights

Vol. 17. Folk-Lore and Fable, Aesop, Grimm, Andersen

Vol. 18. Modern English Drama

Vol. 19. Faust, Egmont, etc., Goethe, Doctor Faustus, Marlowe

Vol. 20. The Divine Comedy, Dante

Vol. 21. I Promessi Sposi, Manzoni

Vol. 22. The Odyssey, Homer

Vol. 23. Two Years Before the Mast, Dana

Vol. 24. On the Sublime, French Revolution, etc., Burke

Vol. 25. J.S. Mill and Thomas Carlyle

Vol. 26. Continental Drama

Vol. 27. English Essays, Sidney to Macaulay

Vol. 28. Essays, English and American

Vol. 29. Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin

Vol. 30. Faraday, Helmholtz, Kelvin, Newcomb, etc.

Vol. 31. Autobiography, Cellini

Vol. 32. Montaigne, Sainte-Beuve, Renan, etc.

Vol. 33. Voyages and Travels

Vol. 34. Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hobbes

Vol. 35. Froissart, Malory, Holinshead

Vol. 36. Machiavelli, More, Luther

Vol. 37. Locke, Berkeley, Hume

Vol. 38. Harvey, Jenner, Lister, Pasteur

Vol. 39. Famous Prefaces

Vol. 40. English Poetry 1: Chaucer to Gray

Vol. 41. English Poetry 2: Collins to Fitzgerald

Vol. 42. English Poetry 3: Tennyson to Whitman

Vol. 43. American Historical Documents

Vol. 44. Sacred Writings: Volume 1

Vol. 45. Sacred Writings: Volume 2

Vol. 46. Elizabethan Drama 1

Vol. 47. Elizabethan Drama 2

Vol. 48. Thoughts and Minor Works, Pascal

Vol. 49. Epic and Saga

Vol. 50. Introduction, Reader's Guide, Indexes