From beginner-friendly introductions to classic works by Simone de Beauvoir, this page features books to suit any learning style. It’s important to note that there is no single best book on Simone de Beauvoir. The best book for you will depend heavily on your preferred learning style and the amount of time/energy you’re willing to spend reading. For example, if you tend to find classic works of philosophy difficult to understand, you might want to start with a short, beginner-friendly introduction. If you prefer more depth, you can choose a more comprehensive introduction or read her for yourself.
It’s also worth noting that it is not a list of personal recommendations. Personal book recommendations tend to be highly subjective, idiosyncratic, and unreliable. This list is part of a collection of over 100 philosophy reading lists which aim to provide a central resource for philosophy book recommendations. These lists were created by searching through hundreds of university course syllabi, internet encyclopedia bibliographies, and community recommendations. Links to the syllabi and other sources used to create this list are at the end of the post. Following these links will help you quickly find a broader range of options if the listed books do not fit what you are looking for.
Here are the best books on or by Simone de Beauvoir in no particular order.
The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvoir
Category: Classic | Length: 832 pages | Originally Published: 1949
Publisher description: Simone de Beauvoir’s essential masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of “woman,” and a revolutionary exploration of inequality and otherness. Unabridged in English for the first time, this long-awaited edition reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as when it was first published, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.
The Ethics of Ambiguity – Simone de Beauvoir
Category: Classic | Length: 192 pages | Originally Published: 1947
Publisher description: In this classic introduction to existentialist thought, French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity simultaneously pays homage to and grapples with her French contemporaries, philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, by arguing that the freedoms in existentialism carry with them certain ethical responsibilities. De Beauvoir outlines a series of “ways of being” (the adventurer, the passionate person, the lover, the artist, and the intellectual), each of which overcomes the former’s deficiencies, and therefore can live up to the responsibilities of freedom. Ultimately, de Beauvoir argues that in order to achieve true freedom, one must battle against the choices and activities of those who suppress it.
The Ethics of Ambiguity is the book that launched Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist and existential philosophy. It remains a concise yet thorough examination of existence and what it means to be human.
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter – Simone de Beauvoir
Category: Autobiography | Length: 384 pages
Publisher description: A superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an adolescent against the conventional expectations of her class, and striking out on her own with an intellectual and existential ambition exceedingly rare in a young woman in the 1920s.
She vividly evokes her friendships, love interests, mentors, and the early days of the most important relationship of her life, with fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre, against the backdrop of a turbulent political time.
The Mandarins – Simone de Beauvoir
Category: Fiction | Length: 608 pages | Originally Published: 1954
Publisher description: In her most famous novel, The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir takes an unflinching look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of World War II. In fictionally relating the stories of those around her ― Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Nelson Algren ― de Beauvoir dissects the emotional and philosophical currents of her time. At once an engrossing drama and an intriguing political tale, The Mandarins is the emotional odyssey of a woman torn between her inner desires and her public life. “Much more than a roman a clef . . . a moving and engrossing novel.” ― New York Times
A Very Easy Death – Simone de Beauvoir
Category: Novel | Length: 112 pages | Originally Published: 1964
Publisher description: A Very Easy Death has long been considered one of Simone de Beauvoir’s masterpieces. The profoundly moving, day-by-day recounting of her mother’s death “shows the power of compassion when it is allied with acute intelligence” (The Sunday Telegraph).
Powerful, touching, and sometimes shocking, this is an end-of-life account that no reader is likely to forget.
Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography – Deirdre Bair
Category: Biography | Length: 718 pages | Published: 1991
Publisher description: This definitive biography is based on five years of interviews with de Beauvoir, and is written with her full cooperation. Bair penetrates the mystique of this brilliant and often paradoxical woman, who has been called one of the great minds of the 20th century, and surely, one of the most famously unconventional figures of her generation. “As a reference work . . . Simone de Beauvoir can be considered definitive”.–The Atlantic.
The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir – Claudia Card
Category: Comprehensive Textbook | Length: 360 pages | Published: 2003
Simone de Beauvoir was a philosopher and writer of notable range and influence whose work is central to feminist theory, French existentialism, and contemporary moral and social philosophy. The essays in this volume examine the major aspects of her thought. They explore her views on the role of biology, sexuality and sexual difference, and evil; the influence on her work of Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, and others; and the philosophical significance of her memoirs and fiction.
The following sources were used to build this list:
University Course Syllabi:
- Simone de Beauvoir – University of Oregon
Bibliographies:
- Bibliography for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Simone de Beauvoir
- Bibliography for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Simone de Beauvoir
Other Recommendations:
Additional Resources
You might also be interested in the following reading lists:
- The Best Introductory Philosophy Books
- The Best Books on the History of Philosophy
- The Best Books on Existentialism
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A History of Western Philosophy in 500 Essential Quotations – Lennox Johnson
Category: Reference | Length: 145 pages | Published: 2019
Publisher’s Description: A History of Western Philosophy in 500 Essential Quotations is a collection of the greatest thoughts from history’s greatest thinkers. Featuring classic quotations by Aristotle, Epicurus, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Michel Foucault, and many more, A History of Western Philosophy in 500 Essential Quotations is ideal for anyone looking to quickly understand the fundamental ideas that have shaped the modern world.