Literature

Serious discussions of liberty are not limited to academic works. Poets, playwrights, and novelists have had much to contribute as well.

See also the extracts, chapters, and introductions in the Literature section of the Ideas page.

• The Aeneid (Dryden trans.) (Virgil)
• Areopagitica (1644) (Jebb ed.) (John Milton)
• Autobiography (Edward Gibbon)
• The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamesh (Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge)
• The Barber of Seville, or the Useless Precaution (Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais)
• Beowulf (original lang.) (Alfred John Wyatt)
• The Bhagvat-Geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon (Charles Wilkins)
• BOLL 51: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “On Liberty” (1810-22) (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
• BOLL 69: John Thelwall, “Political Songs” (1795) (John Thelwall)
• Candide, ou l’Optimisme; traduit de l’Allemand de M. le Docteur Ralph (Voltaire)
• Cato. A Tragedy (1713 ed.) (Joseph Addison)
• Cato: A Tragedy and Selected Essays (Joseph Addison)
• Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, 3 vols. (Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury)
• Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, vol. 1 (Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury)
• Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, vol. 2 (Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury)
• Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, vol. 3 (Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury)
• The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume I - Autobiography and Literary Essays (John Stuart Mill)
• The Comedies of Aristophanes, 2 vols. (Aristophanes)
• The Comedies of Aristophanes, vol. 1 (Aristophanes)
• The Comedies of Aristophanes, vol. 2 (Aristophanes)
• The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope (Henry W. Boynton)
• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 1 (The Oxford Shakespeare) (William Shakespeare)
• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare) (William James Craig)
• The Tempest (William Shakespeare)
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona (William James Craig)