Good Work Library

Folders

  • AengliscTexts from the English literary and folk traditions, from Old English and Middle English through ballads, early modern prose, witchcraft pamphlets, and wonder literature. (187)
  • AfricanAfrican folklore, religion, history, oral tradition, and Atlantic diaspora traditions. (32)
  • AnthronomySpeculative humanities, anomalous evidence, contact hypotheses, phantom geographies, ethnonym trails, and disciplined theories about the human past. (5)
  • AquarianPost-Blake New Age and modern reenchantment: Theosophy, New Thought, mysticism, folklore theory, neopagan revival, depth psychology, and mythopoesis. (345)
  • ArabicArabic-language literature: pre-Islamic poetry, adab, maqamat, and neighboring links to Arabic Sufi texts. (20)
  • AssyrianAssyrian and Neo-Assyrian textual tradition: Nineveh, Ashurbanipal's library, royal reports, court prophecy, ritual, medicine, fables, Ahikar, and scholarly tablets. (47)
  • AustralianArchival Aboriginal Australian traditions, story collections, and early ethnographic records arranged by region and genre. (11)
  • BabylonianBabylonian and Akkadian sacred literature: Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, Enuma Elish, Marduk and Ishtar theology, Hammurabi, prayers, incantations, omens, scholarly texts, and wisdom. (65)
  • BalticBaltic folklore, mythic survivals, and sacred narratives from Lithuanian, Latvian, and neighboring traditions. (6)
  • BasqueBasque legends, folklore, and mythic traditions from the western Pyrenees and the wider Basque world. (4)
  • BengaliBengali-language literature across Bangladesh, West Bengal, adjoining regions, and diaspora—opened with Tagore's historical English Gitanjali without reducing the field to one poet. (4)
  • BonBon and Old Tibetan frontier texts: Dunhuang ritual materials, divination manuals, funeral rites, myths, law, contracts, royal inscriptions, and imperial Buddhist documents. (69)
  • BuddhistBuddhist texts and study materials across Pali, Gandhari, Sanskrit, Mahayana, Zen, and Tibetan traditions. (370)
  • CanaaniteThe 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. (5)
  • CatharSurviving texts from the Cathar tradition, the dualist Christian movement of medieval southern France. (5)
  • CaucasusPlural Caucasus myth, epic, folklore, and sacred storytelling, now entered through distinct Ossetian and Kartvelian source rooms without collapsing their languages or peoples. (37)
  • CelticIrish, Welsh, Manx, Breton, Scottish, and pan-Celtic myth, saga, folklore, fairy faith, and literary revival. (148)
  • ChineseChinese Buddhist and popular devotion, salvationist scripture, body-cultivation writing, and source-facing translations in the Good Works Library. (28)
  • ChristianChristian scripture, history, theology, hagiography, liturgy, and devotional writing across ancient, medieval, and later traditions. (186)
  • CommonsRadical commons, communalist, anti-enclosure, and common-treasury texts from early modern and modern social-religious movements. (72)
  • ConfucianConfucian classics, commentaries, moral philosophy, ritual theory, and East Asian traditions of cultivation and governance. (14)
  • DaoistTexts from the Daoist tradition, encompassing philosophy, alchemy, and the way of naturalness. (54)
  • EgyptianSacred texts from ancient Egypt, including funerary literature and hymns to the gods. (32)
  • EthnotheologyTexts and teachings from living religious communities, devotional movements, and contemporary lineages represented in the Good Works Library. (209)
  • FrenchFrench-language literature across medieval language zones, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Québec, the Caribbean, Africa, the Maghreb, the Indian Ocean, Asia, the Pacific, and diaspora—alongside a separate Joan of Arc documentary source house. (27)
  • GermanGerman and Germanic literary, legendary, and religious-cultural inheritance, beginning here with heroic legend, Rhine story, and Nibelung reception. (4)
  • GnosticTexts from the Gnostic traditions, including Nag Hammadi scriptures, Sethian and Valentinian writings, and apocrypha. (123)
  • Greco-RomanGreek, Roman, and late antique religion, philosophy, myth, literature, ritual, empire, and classical reception gathered as an antiquity field. (179)
  • HermeticTexts from the Hermetic tradition, the Greco-Egyptian wisdom literature attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. (80)
  • HinduSacred texts from the Hindu tradition, spanning devotional, tantric, and philosophical literature. (82)
  • IndianIndian religious, philosophical, epic, and literary sources across the subcontinent's many languages, traditions, and historical communities. (12)
  • InternetTexts born on the internet — digital-native sacred and philosophical writings. (723)
  • IslamicIslamic scripture, law, theology, philosophy, poetry, history, and devotional literature across Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and global Muslim worlds. (24)
  • ItalianItalian-language literature across city-states, regions, courts, republics, nation, diaspora, and migration—opened with Dante, Boccaccio, and Ariosto without mistaking three Tuscan-centered monuments for the whole field. (8)
  • JainJain scripture, doctrine, ethics, monastic discipline, stories, and philosophical traditions centered on nonviolence and liberation. (8)
  • JapaneseJapanese literature across classical and modern writing, fiction, travel, poetry, religious texts, exact source-language editions, and historically mediated translations. (31)
  • JewishJewish textual, legendary, rabbinic, philosophical, and historical sources, presented with attention to transmission, language, and living communities. (5)
  • JudeanJudean and Jewish texts, including Dead Sea Scrolls, Second Temple writings, biblical reception, midrashic legend, and later traditional collections. (324)
  • KoreanKorean literature across classical fiction, religious writing, poetry, performance, colonial modernity, division, and diaspora. (9)
  • Living Traditions (20)
  • MalayMalay-language literature and Malay traditions across the peninsula and archipelago in documented editions, without treating colonial Malaya as a timeless cultural boundary. (3)
  • MandaeanTexts from the Mandaean tradition, the ancient Gnostic religion centred on John the Baptist and the World of Light. (35)
  • ManichaeanTexts from the Manichaean tradition, Mani's universal religion of light and darkness. (9)
  • MesoamericanMesoamerican traditions presented through specifically named peoples, languages, genres, and source chains—including Nahua song and Kaqchikel family chronicle—without reducing distinct living communities to one timeless mythology. (60)
  • Mesopotamian (5)
  • MyanmarLiteratures and traditions of Myanmar across distinct peoples, languages, regions, religions, historical polities, and diasporas. (2)
  • Native AmericanNative American oral traditions, origin stories, Plains story collections, Cherokee formula texts, ceremonial sources, Native-authored religious interpretation, sacred narratives from distinct Indigenous nations and communities, and a nation-specific Haida oral-literature room. (84)
  • NorseSacred texts from the Norse tradition, including the Poetic Edda and selections from the Prose Edda. (142)
  • Oceanian (1)
  • OceanicOceanic and Pacific sacred narratives, Polynesian concepts, oral traditions, and mythic literatures of mana, tapu, place, and ancestry. (25)
  • PersianPersian epic and narrative in historical English witnesses: Ferdowsi through Zimmern's Shahnameh retelling and the manuscript-based Bakhtyār Nāma frame romance through Ouseley and Clouston. (4)
  • PhilippineThe multilingual literatures of the Philippine archipelago across oral tradition, Indigenous scripts, Tagalog and regional-language print, Spanish and English writing, revolution, dictatorship, and diaspora. (9)
  • PortuguesePortuguese-language literature across Portugal, Brazil, Africa, Asia, and their diasporas—opened with Camões, Vicente, and Machado without mistaking three works for a finished canon. (6)
  • RomaniRomani language, folklore, ethnography, folk tales, fortune telling, and occult reception. (5)
  • ScythianScythian, Sarmatian, Taurian, Alan, Black Sea, and northern-steppe witnesses from classical literature, history, geography, and inscriptions. (190)
  • ShintoShinto myth, ritual, shrine tradition, kami practice, classical Japanese sources, and the religious worlds of Kojiki and Nihongi. (10)
  • SiberianDoorway to the Good Work Library's shelf of Chukchi, Koryak, Yukaghir, and other native Siberian material. (3)
  • SikhSikh scripture, history, gurmat, devotional practice, community formation, and the Guru Granth Sahib tradition. (4)
  • SlavicSlavic folklore, mythic survivals, Christianized legends, epic motifs, and sacred narratives across eastern, western, and southern Slavic worlds. (85)
  • SpanishSpanish epic, romance, legend, devotional memory, and literary traditions from Iberian and related worlds. (5)
  • Sri LankanSri Lankan religious, literary, historical, and folkloric sources, organized by language, community, and documented provenance. (1)
  • SufiSufi poetry, doctrine, devotional practice, saints, orders, ecstatic utterance, and Islamic mystical literature across languages. (55)
  • SumerianSumerian sacred and literary corpus: temple hymns, city laments, royal praise poems, Inanna myths, Enki and Ninurta narratives, disputations, wisdom, and scribal tradition. (91)
  • TamilTamil devotional poetry, Saiva and Vaisnava bhakti, ethical classics, temple song, and South Indian sacred literary traditions. (15)
  • TocharianFragmentary Buddhist, secular, and linguistic witnesses from the vanished Tocharian languages of the Tarim Basin. (71)
  • Turkish (2)
  • UralicDistinct Uralic-language literary and sacred traditions, including authored writing, oral texts, historical collections, and translations from Finnish, Estonian, Sámi, Hungarian, Mansi, Udmurt, and other fields. (274)
  • VedicTexts from the Vedic tradition, the oldest layer of Indian scripture including hymns, rituals, and cosmic philosophy. (1050)
  • YiguandaoTexts from the Yiguandao tradition, the Way of Pervading Unity — scriptures of the Eternal Mother and the returning Dao. (72)
  • ZoroastrianSacred texts from the Zoroastrian tradition, including the Gathas of Zarathustra. (36)

Pages

  • GlossaryA cross-traditional glossary of religious and philosophical terminology drawn from every tradition in the Good Works Library.
  • What's NewA dated public ledger of new additions to the Good Works Library.