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Thomas More’s 1516 foundational text of political philosophy — the ideal island society that gave us the word ‘utopia’ and launched a tradition of political imagination extending to Marx, Morris, and beyond. Simultaneously serious argument, humanist satire, and ambiguous meditation: a Wordsworth Classics essential.

Keynes’s 1936 masterwork — the book that transformed how governments respond to economic crises, arguing that markets don’t self-correct and government spending is necessary. One of the twentieth century’s most consequential intellectual works in an accessible Wordsworth Classics edition.

Key passages from Simone de Beauvoir’s foundational 1949 feminist masterpiece — ‘One is not born, but becomes, a woman.’ This Vintage selection makes de Beauvoir’s essential analysis of femininity’s social construction accessible without sacrificing the rigour that makes it indispensable.

The Seducer’s Diary by Søren Kierkegaard (Penguin) — embedded in Either/Or and now available alone, the disturbing and philosophically indispensable account of Johannes’s calculated seduction of Cordelia: simultaneously a portrait of a predatory mind and an inquiry into the difference between aesthetic and ethical modes of existence. Kierkegaard understood that the most damning portrait of a consciousness is one that presents itself as its own advocate. Published by Penguin.

How to Use Your Enemies by Baltasar Gracián (Penguin) — the seventeenth-century Spanish Jesuit’s essential guide to strategy, cunning, and navigating a world where not everyone wishes you well. At under a hundred pages, this Penguin Little Black Classic delivers more concentrated wisdom about power and human nature than most books many times its length.

The Apology of Socrates by Plato (Penguin Classics) — Socrates’ defence at his trial in Athens, 399 BC. Facing death with irony and complete moral courage, he refuses to abandon his philosophical mission. At under sixty pages, one of the most rewarding texts in Western philosophy. Trans. Hugh Tredennick.

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (Penguin Modern Classics) — the foundational text of absurdist philosophy. Confronting the absurdity of existence — our need for meaning in a meaningless universe — Camus arrives at his celebrated answer: one must imagine Sisyphus happy. Brief, brilliant, and enduringly useful.

The Symposium by Plato (Penguin Classics) — one of the most beautiful discussions of love in Western literature. A series of speeches at an Athenian dinner party, culminating in Socrates’ account of Diotima’s teaching that erotic desire is the soul’s longing for immortality and truth. Translated by Christopher Gill.

Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton (Penguin) — a brilliant diagnosis of our chronic anxiety about social position. Having shown how meritocracy creates this condition, de Botton offers five traditional remedies: philosophy, art, politics, Christianity, and Bohemia. Incisive, accessible, and genuinely useful.

The Republic by Plato (Penguin Classics) — one of the most important texts in Western thought. Home to the Allegory of the Cave, the concept of philosopher-kings, and the foundational critique of democracy. Two and a half millennia old and still indispensable. Desmond Lee’s standard translation.

Human, All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche (Penguin Classics) — the turning point in his philosophy, from Romantic idealism to rigorous psychological analysis. Dedicated to Voltaire, this collection of aphorisms examines morality, religion, and art with unsentimental clarity. Translated by Marion Faber.

Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard (Penguin Classics) — the founding document of existentialism. Two complete worldviews — aesthetic and ethical — constructed through pseudonymous authors, with the reader left to choose. The ‘Diary of a Seducer’ is among its most celebrated passages. Translated by Alastair Hannay.

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (Vintage) — the foundational text of modern feminism, first published in 1949. ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ — de Beauvoir’s central argument revealed femininity as social construction and permanently transformed thinking about gender. In Borde and Malovany-Chevallier’s landmark translation.

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (Vintage) — the 1513 political masterpiece that inaugurated modern political science. Machiavelli’s stark account of how power is acquired and maintained, separated from conventional morality, remains one of the most famous and influential short texts in the history of ideas.