Books in the Wordsworth Classics of World Literature series

Translated by A.A. Brill With an Introduction by Stephen Wilson.Sigmund Freud's audacious masterpiece, The Interpretation of Dreams, has never ceased to stimulate controversy since its publication in 1900.Freud is acknowledged as the founder of psychoanalysis, the key to unlocking the human mind, a task which has become essential to man's survival in the twentieth century, as science and technology have rushed ahead of our ability to cope with their consequences.Freud saw that man is at war with himself and often unable to tolerate too much reality. He propounded the theory that dreams are the contraband representations of the beast within man, smuggled into awareness during sleep. In Freudian interpretation, the analysis of dreams is the key to unlocking the secrets of the unconscious mind.

With an Introduction by Dr Richard Serjeantson, Trinity College, CambridgeSince its first publication in 1651, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan has been recognised as one of the most compelling, and most controversial, works of political philosophy written in English. Forged in the crucible of the civil and religious warfare of the mid-seventeenth century, it proposes a political theory that combines an unequivocal commitment to natural human liberty with the conviction that the sovereign power of government must be exercised absolutely. Leviathan begins from some shockingly naturalistic starting-points: an analysis of human nature as being motivated by vain-glory and pride, and a vision of religion as simply the fear of invisible powers made up by the mind. Yet from these deliberately unpromising elements, Hobbes constructs with unparalleled forcefulness an elaborate, systematic, and comprehensive account of how political society ought to be: ordered, law-bound, peaceful. In Leviathan, Hobbes presents us with a portrait of politics which depicts how a state that is made up of the unified body of all its citizens will be powerful, fruitful, protective of each of its members, and above all free from internal violence.

Homer bidding farewell to his wife, Odysseus bound to the mast, Penelope at the loom, Achilles dragging Hector's body round the walls of Troy - scenes from Homer have been portrayed in every generation. Chapman's translations are argued to be two of the liveliest and readable.

Based on the fable of a man who traded his soul for superhuman powers and knowledge, this text became the life work of Germany's greatest poet, Goethe. It is the dramatic poem that charts the life of a deeply flawed individual and his fight against despair and the nihilism of the Mephistopheles.

With an Introduction by Derek Matravers.In The Social Contract Rousseau (1712-1778) argues for the preservation of individual freedom in political society. An individual can only be free under the law, he says, by voluntarily embracing that law as his own. Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate our desires to the interests of all, the general will.Some have seen in this the promise of a free and equal relationship between society and the individual, while others have seen it as nothing less than a blueprint for totalitarianism. The Social Contract is not only one of the great defences of civil society, it is also unflinching in its study of the darker side of political systems.

Adam Smith (1723-1790) was one of the brightest stars of the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was his most important book. First published in London in March 1776, it had been eagerly anticipated by Smith's contemporaries and became an immediate bestseller. That edition sold out quickly and others followed. Today, Smith's Wealth of Nations rightfully claims a place in the Western intellectual canon. It is the first book of modern political economy, and still provides the foundation for the study of that discipline. But it is much more than that. Along with important discussions of economics and political theory, Smith mixed plain common sense with large measures of history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and much else. Few texts remind us so clearly that the Enlightenment was very much a lived experience, a concern with improving the human condition in practical ways for real people. A masterpiece by any measure, Wealth of Nations remains a classic of world literature to be usefully enjoyed by readers today.

Boccaccio's Decameron recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to our own day.

Dating for around 300 BC, this is an early work of the Chinese school of philosophy called Taoism. It offers a complete view of the cosmos and how human beings should respond to it. It has mystical insight into the nature of things and forms a basis for a humane morality and political utopia.

First published in a posthumous edition of 1677, this work by Spinoza is a systematic attempt to work out the nature of God, the relation between mind and body, human psychology, and the best way to live.