Library / Guides / Where to start with Plato
Library guide
Start with John M. Cooper’s Plato: Complete Works and read the dialogues in the order printed in that volume. The order opens with the trial and death of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. The Republic comes later in the same book. Separate Republic editions are already on the shelf, including Allan Bloom’s, the current read, before a return to Complete Works. The early dialogues do not have their own book pages.
Hackett edition, edited by John M. Cooper. The reading order is the order printed in the book. The midpoint essay lists every dialogue.
It sits later in Cooper’s order. Three editions are already on the shelf.
Standalone volumes linked from the Plato author page. Read them with Complete Works.
Ion takes up the Iliad. The Homer guide is the shelf bridge for that poem. The 2026 list is the Plato year.