Solitude
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers seeking a rational basis for solitude rather than feel-good reassurance
- Those interested in Enlightenment-era essays and moral philosophy
- People whose days are consumed by social contact and information and who wish to practice quiet reflection
- Readers who enjoy slow reading of short chapters and are willing to leave space for reflection
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting empirical modern psychology research or concrete techniques
- Readers of fiction who need fast-paced plots or strong narrative
- Those with little patience for eighteenth-century English essay style
Reading tips
- Read one or two sections a day, then close the book and sit quietly for a few minutes, noting the sentence that moved you most.
- Keep a pen handy and mark in the margins the arguments you agree and disagree with, forming a dialogue with the author.
- Read during a fixed period of solitude, such as early morning or before sleep, so that reading and the rhythm of life reinforce each other.
- After finishing the book, review your annotations and write a short summary of about a hundred words, tracing how your attitude toward solitude has changed.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
FAQ
Is this book about how to relieve loneliness?
Is the original English edition difficult to read?
Why is a book about solitude worth reading now?
Comments
Find this book
This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Johann Georg Zimmermann (1728–1795) was a German-language writer remembered in book history for his essays on the theme of solitude. Two of his works are held in this collection, Solitude and La solitude, indicating that he wrote and circulated on the subject of being alone across different languages. Public information about his nationality, education, positions, and specific experiences is limited, so no speculation is offered here. Judging from the surviving works, his writing leans toward reflections on life experience and inner life, with the flavor of eighteenth-century European moral essays; he often uses personal feeling and observation to prompt readers to consider the value of solitude. Such themes drew considerable attention among readers of the period and linked his name closely with the subject of loneliness. Given the limited sources, his full life and oeuvre await further verification, yet the contemplative style and discussion of solitary life in his works remain a useful reference for understanding the eighteenth-century European essay tradition.
