Confessions

A new series of beautiful hardcover nonfiction classics, with covers designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith

World-changing ideas meet eye-catching design: the best titles of the extraordinarily successful Great Ideas series are now packaged in Coralie Bickford-Smith’s distinctive, award-winning covers. Whether on a well-curated shelf or in your back pocket, these timeless works of philosophical, political, and psychological thought are absolute must-haves for book collectors as well as design enthusiasts.

The son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, Saint Augustine spent his early years torn between conflicting faiths and worldviews. His Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recount how, slowly and painfully, he came to turn away from his youthful ideas and licentious lifestyle, to become instead an ardent devotee of Christianity and one of its most influential thinkers. A remarkably honest and revealing spiritual autobiography touching on issues relevant to people of all faiths, the Confessions also address fundamental issues of Christian doctrine, and many of the prayers and meditations it includes are still an integral part of the practice of Christianity today. In his insightful introduction, R. S. Pine-Coffin discusses Saint Augustine’s intentions in writing his Confessions and issues of translation. This edition also includes a list of dates of events recorded in the Confessions. 

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

St Augustine of Hippo, the great Doctor of the Latin Church, was born at Thagaste in North Africa, in 354 CE. He was brought up as a Christian but he was soon converted to the Manichean religion. He also came under the influence of Neoplatonism. However, in 387 he renounced all his unorthodox beliefs and was baptised into Christianity. His surviving works have profoundly influenced Christian theology and the psychology and political theology of the West.

R. S. Pine-Coffin was born in 1917. He was educated at Ampleforth and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He died in 1992.