In this collection of works by mystical poet Kahlil Gibran, the human soul is presented as essentially noble and good. His best-selling poem collection, The Prophet, is a discourse on love, good and evil, religion, and death. In The Forerunner, Gibran makes clear that we are masters of our own destiny and not the toys of a blind fate. Finally, The Madman asserts that we tend to be what society expects from us, even when these expectations might be detrimental to the development of our self-identity.

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), poet, philosopher, and artist, was born in Lebanon. For the last twenty years of his life, he made his home in the United States. His masterpiece was The Prophet, which he considered as "part of myself." He kept the manuscript for four years before delivering it to his publisher because he wanted "to be sure, very sure, that every word of it was the very best I had to offer."