The Art of Solitude (Macmillan Collector's Library)

In a world where we’re more connected than ever, why is it that we’re also more lonely? Dip into this anthology of classic writing to reclaim the pleasure of your own company.

The Art of Solitude shows some of the myriad ways in which people throughout history have understood their experiences of the solitary life, or have counselled others to benefit from solitude. It contains poetry, essays, autobiographical pieces and short stories from writers such as Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson and Ralph Waldo Emerson. These diverse works can teach us how to think in freedom, how to enjoy a profound inner life and how best to cope with the fact that, as the novelist Joseph Conrad put it, we live, as we dream—alone. Above all, they show how we might truly connect with ourselves and, in the process, how we can meaningfully connect with those around us, including the earth itself. Looked at in this way, solitude is always focused both outward and inward, towards the self and towards the world. The cure for loneliness is, in the end, the art of solitude.