Augustine intended the Soliloquies and the Immortality of the soul to form a single book. For those who are unacquainted with Augustine it is a good book with which to begin. It deals, as he says, with those matters about which he most wanted to know at this time, i.e. between his conversion in the summer of 386 and his baptism at Easter, 387. The matters are the primacy of mind over things of sense, and the immortality of the soul. These central tenets of Neoplatonism are not simply theoretical questions for Augustine. He had been through a period of intense strain, close to a nervous breakdown, and the Soliloquies are the description of his most intimate feelings, a form of therapy. The Soliloquies and the Immortality of the soul are the finished and the unfinished parts respectively of the same work. The latter shows us the raw material of a dialogue: in the Soliloquies we have a piece of theatre, the dramatised conflict between two personae. They are two aspects of the one character (he invented the word soliloquies), and the presentation gives us a picture of Augustine at this time which is even more immediate than his self-portrait in the Confessions. This early work gives us the first direct evidence on the temperament of the man who created the Confessions: someone fascinated with the mystery of the personality, and particularly memory, a lover of puzzles and paradoxes, a rhetorician with a deep interest in philosophy, a highly emotional human being, and above all, a questioner concerned with knowing the truth.

In the tenth century, an anonymous scholar crafted an Old English version of Saint Augustine's Soliloquia, which explores the nature of truth and immortality of the soul. This volume presents the first English translation of the complete Old English Soliloquies to appear in more than a century accompanied by a unique edition of Augustine's work.

A fresh, new translation of Augustine's fourth work as a Christian convert The first four works written by St. Augustine of Hippo after his conversion to Christianity are dialogues that have influenced prominent thinkers from Boethius to Bernard Lonergan. Usually called the Cassiciacum dialogues, these four works are of a high literary and intellectual quality, combining Ciceronian and neo-Platonic philosophy, Roman comedy and Vergilian poetry, and early Christian theology. They are also, arguably, Augustine's most charming works, exhibiting his whimsical levity and ironic wryness. Soliloquies is the fourth work in this tetralogy. Augustine coined the term "soliloquy" to describe this new form of dialogue. Soliloquies, a conversation between Augustine and his reason, fuses the dialogue genre and Roman theater, opening with a search for intellectual and moral self-knowledge before converging on the nature of truth and the question of the soul's immortality. Foley's volume also includes On the Immortality of the Soul, which consists of notes for the unfinished portion of the work.

Although the world wide popularity of the “Imitation of Christ” has somewhat thrown into the shade the other works of Thomas à Kempis, no apology is needed for the publication of a revised edition of the “Soliloquy of the Soul.” Its authorship has never been disputed, and internal evidence—perhaps the best amid the interminable disputes on the subject—unhesitatingly decides that the “Soliloquy” and the “Imitation” are by one and the same hand. They are, as Dean Milman observed, more than kindred in thought and language. The same spirit of exalted piety and of fervent devotion, making use of the sublime imagery of the inspired writers of the Old Testament, is conspicuous in both works. Aeterna Press

A fresh, new translation of Augustine’s fourth work as a Christian convert The first four works written by St. Augustine of Hippo after his conversion to Christianity are dialogues that have influenced prominent thinkers from Boethius to Bernard Lonergan. Usually called the Cassiciacum dialogues, these four works are of a high literary and intellectual quality, combining Ciceronian and neo-Platonic philosophy, Roman comedy and Vergilian poetry, and early Christian theology. They are also, arguably, Augustine’s most charming works, exhibiting his whimsical levity and ironic wryness. Soliloquies is the fourth work in this tetralogy. Augustine coined the term “soliloquy” to describe this new form of dialogue. Soliloquies, a conversation between Augustine and his reason, fuses the dialogue genre and Roman theater, opening with a search for intellectual and moral self-knowledge before converging on the nature of truth and the question of the soul’s immortality. Foley’s volume also includes On the Immortality of the Soul, which consists of notes for the unfinished portion of the work.