Studies in Pessimism

Schopenhauer's masterpiece, complete in one file. A blind, endless will drives everything, and life swings between pain and boredom. The founding work of philosophical pessimism, in the classic Haldane and Kemp translation.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The first full history of pessimism in English, from ancient laments to Schopenhauer and Hartmann. Sully explains what the pessimists claimed and then argues against them, so you get both the tradition and its critics.

James Sully

Leopardi's Operette morali, short dialogues where nature, death, fashion and a stray Icelander debate whether life is worth living. Witty, bleak and beautifully written, a classic of 19th-century pessimism in Charles Edwardes' translation.

Giacomo Leopardi