Routledge Classics
About the Book Series
"Routledge Classics is more than just a collection of texts...it embodies and circulates challenging ideas and keeps vital debates current and alive." – Hilary Mantel
The Routledge Classics series, with titles by Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Mary Midgley, was launched in 2001. The series contains the very best of Routledge’s publishing over the past century or so, books that have, by popular consent, become established as classics in their field. Drawing on a fantastic heritage of innovative writing published by Routledge and its associated imprints, this series makes available in attractive, affordable form some of the most important works of modern times.
In 2021 we are delighted to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Routledge Classics series with the publication of fifteen stellar new titles. All include new forewords or introductions and eye-catching cover designs, a hallmark of the series.
A Theory of Literary Production
1st Edition
By Pierre Macherey
March 30, 2006
Who is more important: the reader, or the writer? Originally published in French in 1966, Pierre Macherey’s first and most famous work, A Theory of Literary Production dared to challenge perceived wisdom, and quickly established him as a pivotal figure in literary theory. The reissue of this work ...
Science and Poetry
1st Edition
By Mary Midgley
March 30, 2006
Science, according to the received wisdom of the day, can answer any question we choose to put to it – even the most fundamental about ourselves, our behaviour and our cultures. But for Mary Midgley it can never be the whole story, as it cannot truly explain what it means to be human. In this ...
Colonialism and Neocolonialism
1st Edition
By Jean-Paul Sartre
March 29, 2006
Nearly forty years after its first publication in French, this collection of Sartre’s writings on colonialism remains a supremely powerful, and relevant, polemical work. Over a series of thirteen essays Sartre brings the full force of his remarkable intellect relentlessly to bear on his own country...
The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies
2nd Edition
By Marcel Mauss
February 02, 2006
In this, his most famous work, Marcel Mauss presented to the world a book which revolutionized our understanding of some of the basic structures of society. By identifying the complex web of exchange and obligation involved in the act of giving, Mauss called into question many of our social ...
Four Archetypes
3rd Edition
By C.G. Jung
December 16, 2005
The concept of the archetype is crucial to Jung's radical interpretation of the human mind. Jung believed that every person partakes of a universal or collective unconscious that persists through generations. The origins of the concept can be traced to his very first publication in 1902 and it ...
Playing and Reality
2nd Edition
By D. W. Winnicott
November 11, 2005
What are the origins of creativity and how can we develop it - whether within ourselves or in others? Not only does Playing and Reality address these questions, it also tackles many more that surround the fundamental issue of the individual self and its relationship with the outside world. In ...
Lyrical Ballads
1st Edition
By William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
November 07, 2005
When it was first published, Lyrical Ballads enraged the critics of the day: Wordsworth and Coleridge had given poetry a voice, one decidedly different to that which had been voiced before. This acclaimed Routledge Classics edition offers the reader the opportunity to study the poems in their ...
The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds
1st Edition
By John Bowlby
November 07, 2005
Helping both parents and psychologists to arrive at a better understanding of the inner emotional world of the infant, this selection of key lectures by Bowlby includes the seminal one that gives the volume its title. Informed by wide clinical experience, and written with the author's ...
Suicide: A Study in Sociology
2nd Edition
By Emile Durkheim
August 04, 2005
There would be no need for sociology if everyone understood the social frameworks within which we operate. That we do have a connection to the larger picture is largely thanks to the pioneering thinker Émile Durkheim. He recognized that, if anything can explain how we as individuals relate to ...
Stigmata: Escaping Texts
2nd Edition
By Hélène Cixous
April 19, 2005
A 'wilful extremist' according to the London Times, Hélène Cixous is hailed as one of the most formidable writers and thinkers of our time. Acclaimed by luminaries such as Jacques Derrida, her writing has nonetheless been misunderstood and misread, to a surprising extent. With the inclusion of ...
Words and Things: An Examination of, and an Attack on, Linguistic Philosophy, A Special Issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology
2nd Edition
By Ernest Gellner
April 19, 2005
When Ernest Gellner was his early thirties, he took it upon himself to challenge the prevailing philosophical orthodoxy of the day, Linguistic Philosophy. Finding a powerful ally in Bertrand Russell, who provided the foreword for this book, Gellner embarked on the project that was to put him on the...
The Moral Law: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
2nd Edition
By Immanuel Kant
April 12, 2005
Few books have had as great an impact on intellectual history as Kant's The Moral Law. In its short compass one of the greatest minds in the history of philosophy attempts to identify the fundamental principle 'morality' that governs human action. Supported by a clear introduction and detailed ...