Aenglisc — Texts from the English literary and folk traditions, from Old English and Middle English through ballads, early modern prose, witchcraft pamphlets, and wonder literature. (175)
Anthronomy — Speculative humanities, anomalous evidence, contact hypotheses, phantom geographies, ethnonym trails, and disciplined theories about the human past. (5)
Aquarian — Post-Blake New Age and modern reenchantment: Theosophy, New Thought, mysticism, folklore theory, neopagan revival, depth psychology, and mythopoesis. (166)
Arabic — Arabic-language literature: pre-Islamic poetry, adab, maqamat, and neighboring links to Arabic Sufi texts. (20)
Assyrian — Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian textual tradition: Nineveh, Ashurbanipal's library, royal reports, court prophecy, ritual, medicine, fables, Ahikar, and scholarly tablets. (20)
Australian — Archival Aboriginal Australian traditions, story collections, and early ethnographic records arranged by region and genre. (11)
Babylonian — Babylonian and Akkadian sacred literature: Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, Enuma Elish, Marduk and Ishtar theology, Hammurabi, prayers, incantations, omens, scholarly texts, and wisdom. (65)
Baltic — Baltic folklore, mythic survivals, and sacred narratives from Lithuanian, Latvian, and neighboring traditions. (4)
Basque — Basque legends, folklore, and mythic traditions from the western Pyrenees and the wider Basque world. (5)
Bon — Bon and Old Tibetan frontier texts: Dunhuang ritual materials, divination manuals, funeral rites, myths, law, contracts, royal inscriptions, and imperial Buddhist documents. (69)
Buddhist — Buddhist texts and study materials across Pali, Gandhari, Sanskrit, Mahayana, Zen, and Tibetan traditions. (324)
Canaanite — The myths and rituals of ancient Canaan, preserved on clay tablets from the ruins of Ugarit — the storm god, the sea, and the descent into death. (6)
Cathar — Surviving texts from the Cathar tradition, the dualist Christian movement of medieval southern France. (6)
Caucasus — Caucasus myth, epic, folklore, and sacred storytelling from the mountain traditions between the Black and Caspian seas. (31)
Celtic — Irish, Welsh, Manx, Breton, Scottish, and pan-Celtic myth, saga, folklore, fairy faith, and literary revival. (137)
Chinese — Chinese texts and translations in the Good Works Library. (19)
Christian — Christian scripture, history, theology, hagiography, liturgy, and devotional writing across ancient, medieval, and later traditions. (121)
Commons — Radical commons, communalist, anti-enclosure, and common-treasury texts from early modern and modern social-religious movements. (58)
Confucian — Confucian classics, commentaries, moral philosophy, ritual theory, and East Asian traditions of cultivation and governance. (14)
Daoist — Texts from the Daoist tradition, encompassing philosophy, alchemy, and the way of naturalness. (51)
Egyptian — Sacred texts from ancient Egypt, including funerary literature and hymns to the gods. (29)
Ethnotheology — Texts and teachings from living religious communities, devotional movements, and contemporary lineages represented in the Good Works Library. (210)
French — French literary, religious, legendary, and romance traditions, beginning here with Old French epic, courtly romance, and Grail literature. (4)
German — German and Germanic literary, legendary, and religious-cultural inheritance, beginning here with heroic legend, Rhine story, and Nibelung reception. (3)
Gnostic — Texts from the Gnostic traditions, including Nag Hammadi scriptures, Sethian and Valentinian writings, and apocrypha. (114)
Greco-Roman — Greek, Roman, and late antique religion, philosophy, myth, literature, ritual, empire, and classical reception gathered as an antiquity field. (161)
Hermetic — Texts from the Hermetic tradition, the Greco-Egyptian wisdom literature attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. (72)
Hindu — Sacred texts from the Hindu tradition, spanning devotional, tantric, and philosophical literature. (191)
Internet — Texts born on the internet — digital-native sacred and philosophical writings. (723)
Islamic — Islamic scripture, law, theology, philosophy, poetry, history, and devotional literature across Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and global Muslim worlds. (21)
Italian — Italian literary, religious, legendary, and poetic traditions, beginning here with Renaissance chivalric epic. (1)
Jain — Jain scripture, doctrine, ethics, monastic discipline, stories, and philosophical traditions centered on nonviolence and liberation. (9)
Japanese — Japanese religious literature, travel writing, aesthetics, poetry, and Buddhist, Shinto, and literary reflections on impermanence. (5)
Judean — Judean and Jewish texts, including Dead Sea Scrolls, Second Temple writings, biblical reception, midrashic legend, and later traditional collections. (291)
Mandaean — Texts from the Mandaean tradition, the ancient Gnostic religion centred on John the Baptist and the World of Light. (110)
Manichaean — Texts from the Manichaean tradition, Mani's universal religion of light and darkness. (10)
Mesoamerican — Nahua song, flower-and-song theology, royal memory, war lyric, grief song, and colonial manuscript tradition from the Cantares Mexicanos. (56)
Native American — Native American oral traditions, origin stories, ceremonial texts, and sacred narratives from distinct Indigenous nations and communities. (9)
Norse — Sacred texts from the Norse tradition, including the Poetic Edda and selections from the Prose Edda. (141)
Oceanic — Oceanic and Pacific sacred narratives, Polynesian concepts, oral traditions, and mythic literatures of mana, tapu, place, and ancestry. (21)
Persian — Ferdowsi's Shahnameh through Helen Zimmern's public-domain Epic of Kings: Iranian epic memory, kingship, fate, heroism, and translation. (4)
Portuguese — Portuguese literary, religious, legendary, and imperial epic traditions, beginning here with Camoes and the Lusitanian epic imagination. (1)
Scythian — Scythian, Sarmatian, Taurian, Alan, Black Sea, and northern-steppe witnesses from classical literature, history, geography, and inscriptions. (232)
Shinto — Shinto myth, ritual, shrine tradition, kami practice, classical Japanese sources, and the religious worlds of Kojiki and Nihongi. (10)
Sikh — Sikh scripture, history, gurmat, devotional practice, community formation, and the Guru Granth Sahib tradition. (5)
Slavic — Slavic folklore, mythic survivals, Christianized legends, epic motifs, and sacred narratives across eastern, western, and southern Slavic worlds. (18)
Spanish — Spanish epic, romance, legend, devotional memory, and literary traditions from Iberian and related worlds. (5)
Sufi — Sufi poetry, doctrine, devotional practice, saints, orders, ecstatic utterance, and Islamic mystical literature across languages. (57)
Sumerian — Sumerian sacred and literary corpus: temple hymns, city laments, royal praise poems, Inanna myths, Enki and Ninurta narratives, disputations, wisdom, and scribal tradition. (79)
Tamil — Tamil devotional poetry, Saiva and Vaisnava bhakti, ethical classics, temple song, and South Indian sacred literary traditions. (15)
Tocharian — Fragmentary Buddhist, secular, and linguistic witnesses from the vanished Tocharian languages of the Tarim Basin. (70)
Uralic — Sacred texts and translations from the shamanic, ritual, and folk-sacred traditions of the Finno-Ugric, Samoyedic, and Permian peoples — Mansi, Udmurt, Sami, Finnish, Hungarian, and more. (262)
Vedic — Texts from the Vedic tradition, the oldest layer of Indian scripture including hymns, rituals, and cosmic philosophy. (1041)
Yiguandao — Texts from the Yiguandao tradition, the Way of Pervading Unity — scriptures of the Eternal Mother and the returning Dao. (72)
Zoroastrian — Sacred texts from the Zoroastrian tradition, including the Gathas of Zarathustra. (36)
Pages
Glossary — A cross-traditional glossary of religious and philosophical terminology drawn from every tradition in the Good Works Library.
Shelf Principles — The working principles for arranging the Good Works Library shelves: when a tradition deserves its own room, when a broad cultural shelf is only a remainder, and when ambiguity should wait for tags.
Welcome — You found the library. Here's what you're holding.