| Editor | William Bennett |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Morality |
| Genre | Anthology |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | October 20, 1995[1] |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 824[2] |
| ISBN | 0-684-80313-5 |
The Moral Compass (subtitled A Companion to The Book of Virtues and Stories for a Life's Journey) is a 1995 anthology edited by William Bennett. A follow-up to the 1993 collection The Book of Virtues, it consists of seven chapters devoted to different stages of life, with passages from Western civilization and various other cultures. As with its predecessor, the collection consists largely of public-domain material, features texts of escalating complexity in each chapter, and gives each individual selection a short introductory note by compiler Bennett.
Though Bennett intended the original Virtues as a one-off title, audience demand and feedback encouraged him by early 1994 to develop successor installments. Follow-up Compass was part of those efforts, and was published by Simon & Schuster the following October to mainly positive reviews; 730,000 copies were issued and 550,000 sold during its first year. It was also accompanied in 1995 by two children's spin-offs in print, along with the PBS animated series Adventures from the Book of Virtues in 1996.