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Vedanta means 'the end of the Veda.' It is also the name for India's most profound system of philosophy. In this book, based on a lecture given in 1901, Swami Abhedananda concisely and vividly expounds a vision of human and cosmic existence rooted in this philosophy. While he argues vigorously for the reality of reincarnation, which forms the keystone of his thinking, he also explores human nature and Divine nature, reincarnation in other reli...

A Boy's Will is Robert Frost's first collection of poetry, initially published in 1913. The thirty-two poems contained within touch on the themes for which Frost would become famous: rural New England life, the spiritual in nature, and the human condition. More ethereal than his later poetry, it nevertheless is imbued with the clarity and precision which makes Frost so unforgettable. A Boy's Will brought Frost critical acclaim and public atten...

In The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle brings back one of his greatest characters for more sleuthing adventures. Sherlock Holmes is dead - or so everyone thinks, including his old friend Watson. But the great detective still has a few surprises up his sleeve, including a nasty shock for the criminals who thought to profit by his absence! This collection of thirteen cases features missing persons, forced marriage, secret codes, bl...

Did you know that the creator of Sherlock Holmes also wrote first-class historical fiction? Sir Nigel is a medieval coming-of-age story bursting with adventure and romance. It is 1348, at the start of what would become the Hundred Years War. The Lorings, a family with a noble history, have endured a number of setbacks in recent years, and the young Nigel Loring is eager to prove himself in service to King Edward III. The King makes him squire ...

Phaedo is one of Plato's most important works, exploring the nature of life, death, and the soul. Socrates has been sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens. In the hours before he is forced to drink hemlock, he talks with his followers and friends, arguing in favor of in the immortality of the soul, and concluding that death holds no fear for the true philosopher. In the process, he lays the metaphysical foundations for Platonic ...

Parmenides is one of Plato's most challenging and interesting dialogues. By means of a conversation with the aged philosopher Parmenides, Plato conducts a detailed critical examination of a central tenet of his own philosophy, the Theory of Forms. Parmenides then introduces a series of exercises in dialectic centered on the idea of 'the one'. Many scholars contend that this critique and subsequent intellectual exercise is designed to pave the ...

Meno is an absorbing look at the question of human virtue. As in most of Plato's dialogues, Meno features Socrates engaging a prominent thinker and attempting to draw out the implications of his theories. The topic at hand is virtue - what is it? Is it the same for everyone? Where does it come from? In Meno, Socrates also makes the case for the immortality of the soul, and knowledge as a process of remembering that which the soul already knows...

Plato's Gorgias takes on the immortal themes of power, persuasion, and virtue. In ancient Athens, tremendous power lay in the ability to persuade, the art known as rhetoric. In this dialogue, Plato's teacher Socrates visits Gorgias, an eminent rhetorician, to question him about his profession and what is ultimately achieved by it. The discussion then turns to power and where it truly lies, and ends with a passionate argument by Socrates in fav...

Euthydemus is Plato's defense of Socratic dialogue as a means to pursue truth.

Cratylus is Plato's only foray into linguistic philosophy, examining the relationship between language and truth. Hermogenes and Cratylus take opposing views of the nature of language. Hermogenes claims that all names are conventional, having no intrinsic relationship to the objects that they name, whilst Cratylus holds that names do have a relationship with the objects of the world, and that study of a name leads to knowledge of the thing it ...

Charmides is a classic Socratic dialogue which seeks to elucidate a single concept that of sophrosyne, a Greek word most commonly translated into English as temperance. As in many of his great works, Plato gives voice to his teacher Socrates, placing him in conversation with others who are less wise and more willing to commit themselves to untenable positions. Temperance was a key virtue in the classical world, and Socrates engages in dialogue...

Alcibiades is a young Athenian man, arrogant and intelligent, pondering his future course in life. Socrates is older, wiser, and devoted to Alcibiades. In a series of dialogues, Socrates attempts to convince the younger man to abandon his political ambition and choose the philisophical life. In antiquity, the Alcibiades were regarded as the perfect introduction to Platonic philosophy, being simple in construction and easy to understand. In rec...

Plato's The Laws are just that - a vision of a complete legal system for an Ancient Greek city. Three old men are on a religious pilgrimage - an Athenian, a Spartan, and a Cretan. As they travel, it emerges that the Cretan has been given the duty to come up with laws for a new colony, and the men spend the rest of their journey devising and discussing these laws. Following from his utopian and theoretical Republic, which laid out an ideal stat...

Collected here in two volumes are the complete works of Plato, in the classic translation by Benjamin Jowett. One of the most influential thinkers of Ancient Greece or any other era, Plato formed the basis of Western philosophy. Mostly written in the form of dialogues with his teacher Socrates as the protagonist, his works address themes as varied as metaphysics, psychology, pedagogy, politics, and ethics. Despite the weighty subject matter, P...

Meno is an absorbing look at the question of human virtue. As in most of Plato's dialogues, Meno features Socrates engaging a prominent thinker and attempting to draw out the implications of his theories. The topic at hand is virtue - what is it? Is it the same for everyone? Where does it come from? In Meno, Socrates also makes the case for the immortality of the soul, and knowledge as a process of remembering that which the soul already knows...

Plato's The Laws are just that - a vision of a complete legal system for an Ancient Greek city. Three old men are on a religious pilgrimage - an Athenian, a Spartan, and a Cretan. As they travel, it emerges that the Cretan has been given the duty to come up with laws for a new colony, and the men spend the rest of their journey devising and discussing these laws. Following from his utopian and theoretical Republic, which laid out an ideal stat...

ApologyPossibly one of Plato's first works, the Apology presents Socrates' own defense and in the process helps define his philosophy. He wished to change the way in which his contemporaries viewed the world and believed "the unexamined life is not worth living."CritoSocrates is sentenced to death, but his friend Crito bribes the guards to enable is escape. Crito feeling that the sentence is unjust sees no wrong in avoiding it with another inj...

MenexenusThe Menexenus is in large part a funeral oration delivered by Socrates, which he claims was provided by Aspasia, Pericles' mistress. Interpreters of the work are divided over the intention of the work and how it should be understood. It is a parody, an exercise in rhetoric, or serious and a representation of Plato's political ideals?EuthyphroOften underrated, Euthyphro examines the nature of piety and demonstrates the dangers of prete...

In Plato's Theaetetus, Socrates engages a young geometry student in a conversation about the nature of knowledge. Beginning with the idea of knowledge as sensory perception, and then looking at knowledge as a form of belief, Socrates and Theaetetus draw out the problems inherent in these theories. The discussion takes place in the shadow of Socrates' trial and execution, and Socrates is called away before any conclusion is reached. Scholars ha...

The Republic is arguably the greatest of Plato's dialogues. Although its subject is the ideal state, it encompasses education, psychology, ethics and politics. In the Republic's central passage, Plato uses myth to explore the nature of reality, conveying a vision of the human predicament and the role of philosophy in setting us free. He imagines a cave whose inhabitants are chained from birth watching a shadow-play that they take for reality. ...