Read this when
Letters from a Stoic
'We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.' Seneca, roughly 2,000 years before your 3 a.m. overthinking spiral. 🌙
Who it's for
Seneca writes as a warm, sometimes self-critical older friend to Lucilius, taking everyday worries seriously and turning them over until they shrink.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Letters from a Stoic is Robin Campbell's 1969 Penguin selection of 40 letters from Seneca's Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, written around 62–65 CE in the last years of Seneca's life to his friend Lucilius, then procurator of Sicily.
Where to find it
The complete Richard M. Gummere translation (1917–25) is public domain in the US and free on Wikisource, Standard Ebooks and LibriVox (audio). Robin Campbell's Penguin Classics selection is in print a.
Before you start
Heads up: Presents suicide as acceptable.
Age: Ages 14+
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
