This Simone Weil bibliography maps her major works and their English translations. Her books appeared after her death, so the titles, editors and translators below matter when choosing an edition.
The wider reading guide, simone weil books, explains where to begin, while this page lists what exists and who translated it.
Why her bibliography looks unusual
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy stresses that it is “important to note that none of her writings was published as a book in her lifetime”. She wrote essays, letters, lecture material and notebooks, and later editors turned them into volumes. A title on a shelf is therefore often an editor’s arrangement, not a book Weil planned.
The same entry describes her working method: she developed what became her distinct mode of philosophizing through the essay form, “employing paradox and attention”. That explains why her output survives as scattered essays, letters and notebooks, and why the English bibliography is made of collected volumes more than single planned books.
Gravity and Grace is the standard example. According to Wikipedia, the work was not intended to be a book at all: it consists of passages selected from her notebooks and arranged by topic by her friend Gustave Thibon, so his choices strongly shaped the result. Readers comparing editions should keep this in mind, because the same notebook material can appear in different forms elsewhere.
Major works and their English translations
The table lists five widely cited titles. Each entry gives the French original and the English translation that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy cites, with publisher and the years it records.
| English title | French original | Translator | Publisher and years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gravity and Grace | La pesanteur et la grâce | Emma Crawford and Mario von der Ruhr | Routledge; French 1947, translation edition 2004 |
| Waiting for God | Attente de Dieu | Emma Craufurd | HarperCollins; French 1966, translation edition 2009 |
| The Need for Roots | L’enracinement | Arthur Wills | Routledge; French 1949, translation edition 2002 |
| Oppression and Liberty | Oppression et liberté | Arthur Wills and John Petrie | Routledge; French 1955, translation edition 2001 |
| Letter to a Priest | Lettre à un religieux | A. F. Wills | Routledge; French 1951, translation edition 2002 |
These details come from the bibliography of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry, which cites each book by its original year and the year of the edition used.
Two points need care. The years shown for each title are the years the Stanford bibliography gives, so other catalogues may list different printings. The entry’s bibliography also gives the original French publisher for each work, for example Gallimard for the French L’enracinement, so those who read French can trace the first appearance.
Notebooks, lectures, letters and essays
Beyond the best-known titles, the Stanford bibliography cites several collections of her notes and letters. First and Last Notebooks appeared in a 1970 translation by Richard Rees from Oxford University Press, while Arthur Wills translated The Notebooks of Simone Weil, published in 1956 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, according to the Stanford entry. Rees also translated Selected Essays: 1934–1943 (1962) and Seventy Letters (1965), both from Oxford University Press.
For her teaching, the same bibliography lists Lectures on Philosophy, translated by Hugh Price for Cambridge University Press (French 1959, English edition 1978), and the scholarly volume Formative Writings: 1929–1941, edited and translated by Dorothy Tuck McFarland and Wilhelmina Van Ness, from the University of Massachusetts Press (1987). These volumes show her thinking at earlier stages than the late religious books, as the Stanford entry lists them.
Later translations and collected editions
Newer translations keep appearing. The Stanford bibliography cites Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings, translated by Eric O. Springsted and Lawrence E. Schmidt (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), and On the Abolition of All Political Parties, translated by Simon Leys (New York Review of Books, 2013). It also lists Simone Weil: An Anthology, edited by Siân Miles (Penguin, 2005), a one-volume starting point for general readers.
Her essay on the Iliad has its own publication history. According to the Stanford entry, Mary McCarthy’s translation of “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force” appeared in the journal Politics in November 1945. For the complete French texts, the same bibliography points to the Oeuvres complètes, edited by André Devaux and Florence de Lussy.
French titles and related English volumes
The Stanford entry also lists French collections published after her death, among them La condition ouvrière (Gallimard, 1951) and La connaissance surnaturelle (Gallimard, 1950). Another French title is Intuitions pré-Chrétiennes (La Colombe, 1951), whose English counterpart in the same bibliography is Intimations of Christianity among the Ancient Greeks, edited and translated by Elisabeth Chase Geissbuhler (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957).
Several further English volumes appear in the same list. On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God was translated by Richard Rees (Oxford University Press, 1968), and Simone Weil on Colonialism: An Ethic of the Other was edited and translated by J. P. Little (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), according to the Stanford bibliography. The titles show how far her work extends beyond the religious books, into science and politics.
Studies that appear in translation
The bibliography also records studies that were translated into English. These include Simone Weil: Mystic of Passion and Compassion, translated by Karen M. Kraft (Cascade Books, 2015), and Simone Weil: Attention to the Real, translated by Bernard E. Doering (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), as listed in the Stanford entry. English-language studies such as Benjamin Davis’s Simone Weil’s Political Philosophy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) and Richard H. Bell’s Simone Weil: The Way of Justice as Compassion (1998) sit beside them. Readers should check each catalogue entry for the edition in hand.
Choosing and using an edition
A practical way to use a bibliography is to match the edition to the goal. A first-time reader can follow the sequence suggested in how to read simone weil, while a student citing her work should note the translator and the year of the specific English edition, because page numbers and wording differ between translations.
When citing, give the English title, the translator and the publisher together. Because several titles exist in more than one translation or arrangement, a citation that names only the title can point a reader to a different text from the one quoted. The table and lists above supply those details for the editions the Stanford bibliography records, and a library catalogue will show newer printings.
Secondary literature is a separate subject. Journals, study groups and research tools are described in the guide to simone weil scholarship. The Stanford entry itself includes a long list of selected secondary sources for readers who want critical studies next to the primary texts.
Frequently asked questions
Did Weil publish books herself?
Show answer
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, none of her writings was published as a book in her lifetime. Her major titles are posthumous collections.
Who translated Waiting for God?
Show answer
The Stanford bibliography cites the English translation by Emma Craufurd, published by HarperCollins, of the French Attente de Dieu.
Is Gravity and Grace a book Weil planned?
Show answer
No. Wikipedia says it was compiled from her notebooks and arranged by Gustave Thibon, not designed by Weil as a book.
Where can the complete French texts be found?
Show answer
The Stanford bibliography points to the Oeuvres complètes, edited by André Devaux and Florence de Lussy.