EDUCATION • LITERACY • PUBLIC BENEFIT

Put great books into the hands of the next generation.

Educational Literary Resources, Inc. exists to acquire and distribute books and other educational materials to schools, libraries, and educational organizations, and to support related literary and educational programs.

We are especially passionate about helping young Americans encounter the works that shaped the moral imagination, civic thought, poetry, history, and language of the Western tradition.

A warm still life of classical books arranged in golden light.

Our mission

Books belong in classrooms, libraries, and eager young hands.

Educational Literary Resources, Inc. is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation organized for charitable, educational, and literary purposes. Our mission is to advance literacy and education by acquiring and distributing books and educational materials to schools, libraries, and other educational organizations, and by supporting related educational and literary programs.

We care deeply about access. Many students never get the chance to build a personal relationship with the books that formed civilizations, sharpened moral judgment, and taught generations how to think, speak, and write. We want to help change that.

Federal tax-exempt status: Application for recognition under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) is pending.

Why classics still matter

The great conversation should not be reserved for the few.

The classics are not museum pieces. They are living companions. In Homer, young readers meet courage, loss, and homecoming. In Plato, they encounter the search for justice and truth. In Virgil, they see duty, sacrifice, and nationhood. In Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, they learn discipline, resilience, and self-command. These books still speak with force. Too often, however, they are out of reach—financially, institutionally, or culturally. We want to help place them back where they belong: on shelves, in classrooms, in libraries, and in the hands of students ready to discover them.

Students reading and discussing classical books in warm light. — Students discovering enduring works together.

A book drive scene with classical books prepared for distribution. — Books gathered for classrooms, libraries, and community programs.

Young readers engaging with classic books. — Literature as inheritance, invitation, and public good.

Featured books

Examples of the enduring works we want young readers to encounter.

Below are examples of real classical and literary works that inspire the spirit of this effort. Our broader work may also include many other educational, literary, and humanities-oriented materials.

The Iliad

Homer

An epic of honor, wrath, mortality, and the terrible cost of war.

The Odyssey

Homer

A story of perseverance, homecoming, cunning, and the long road back.

The Aeneid

Virgil

A Roman epic of duty, exile, sacrifice, and the founding of a people.

The Republic

Plato

A foundational work on justice, the soul, education, and political order.

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

Personal reflections on character, discipline, and living well under pressure.

Lives

Plutarch

Biography as moral education through the examples of Greeks and Romans.

Metamorphoses

Ovid

Myth, transformation, beauty, wit, and the poetic imagination in full force.

Antigone

Sophocles

A tragedy of law, conscience, family loyalty, and the limits of power.

History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

A timeless study of conflict, ambition, fear, rhetoric, and political realism.

Histories

Herodotus

The father of history opens a vast world of peoples, wars, memory, and inquiry.

Letters to Lucilius

Seneca

Practical philosophical counsel on time, virtue, grief, and self-mastery.

The Acharnians to The Frogs

Aristophanes

Comic brilliance that introduces students to satire, politics, and civic laughter.

We need your help

Help bring great books to American youth.

A strong civilization depends on young people who can read deeply, think seriously, and inherit the best that has been thought, written, and preserved. Your support can help us put meaningful books where they are most needed.

Support may help us:

Provide books for classroom and library collections.
Assist schools, libraries, and educational organizations in obtaining literary and humanities materials.
Encourage reading, discussion, and educational programming around great books.
Expand access for students who might not otherwise encounter these works.

If you are interested in future donations, partnerships, book drives, or educational collaboration, we would be glad to hear from you.

Contact

Join us in putting enduring books back into circulation.

We welcome inquiries from schools, libraries, educational organizations, prospective donors, volunteers, and community partners. If you share our belief that the classics and other great books should remain alive for the next generation, we invite you to reach out.

ADMIN@EDUCATIONALLITERARYRESOURCES.ORG