Ancient & Classical

'The best modern prose translation of The Iliad' Robin Lane Fox, The TimesThe first of the world's great tragedies, The Iliad centres on the pivotal four days towards the end of the ten-year war between the Greeks and the Trojans. In a series of dramatic...

Barry Powell, acclaimed translator of the Iliad (OUP, 2013) and the Odyssey (OUP, 2014) now delivers a graceful, lucid, free-verse translation of the Aeneid in a pleasant modern idiom. On-page notes explain obscure literary and historical references,...

'The Odyssey is a poem of extraordinary pleasures: it is a salt-caked, storm-tossed, wine-dark treasury of tales, of many twists and turns, like life itself' GuardianThe epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War forms one...

Here, in this compact volume, is a greatest hits collection of the 100 best poems ever written by the world's greatest poets. This essential collection is perfect for the poetry lover who wants to carry around their favourite poems, and ideal for the...

Literature's grandest evocation of life's journey, at once an ageless human story and an individual test of moral endurance, Homer's ancient Greek epic The Odyssey is translated by Robert Fagles with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox in Penguin...

Anne Carson has published translations of the ancient Greek poets Sappho, Simonides, Aiskhylos, Sophokles and Euripides. Antigonick is her seminal work. Sophokles' luminous and disturbing tragedy is here given an entirely fresh language and presentation...

'The first great book, and the first great book about the suffering and loss of war' GuardianOne of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its centre is Achilles, the...

When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017-revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller, The Washington Post)-critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira, The New...

The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage, family and identity; and about travellers, hospitality and the changing meanings of home...

'Gripping ... A remarkable achievement' TLS On his deathbed in 19 BCE, Vergil asked that his epic, the Aeneid, be burned. If his wishes had been obeyed, western literature - maybe even western civilization - might have taken a different course. ...

The definitive translation of the world's oldest known epic, now updated with newly discovered materialMiraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as far as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, predates Homer by many centuries...

Robin Kirkpatrick's masterful verse translation of The Divine Comedy, published in a single volume, is the ideal edition for students as well as the general reader coming to this great masterpiece of Italian literature for the first timeThe Divine Comedy...

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. The...

A stunning Penguin clothbound edition of Homer's great epic, in E. V. Rieu's classic translation.The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization - an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the...

A work of tremendous influence that has inspired writers from his ancient Greek contemporaries to modernist writers such as T.S. Eliot, Homer's epic poem The Iliad is translated by Robert Fagles with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox in Penguin...

'Still remarkably vivid. It is easier to read this for pure pleasure than just about any other ancient text' Nicholas Lezard, GuardianOvid's sensuous and witty poem begins with the creation of the world and brings together a dazzling array of...

STEP INTO ANOTHER WORLD - OF MAGIC, MAYHEM, MONSTERS AND MANIACAL GODS - IN STEPHEN FRY'S MOMENTOUS SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, MYTHOS'A romp through the lives of ancient Greek gods. Fry is at his story-telling best . . . the gods will be pleased'...

Composed towards the end of the first millennium, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is one of the great Northern epics and a classic of European literature. In his new translation, Seamus Heaney has produced a work which is both true, line by line, to the...

Preserved on a single surviving manuscript dating from around 1400, composed by an anonymous master, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was rediscovered only 200 years ago, and published for the first time in 1839. One of the earliest great stories of...

The theme of the Metamorphoses is change and transformation, as illustrated in Graeco-Roman myth and legend. On this ostensibly unifying thread Ovid strings together a vast and kaleidoscopic sequence of brilliant narratives, in which the often...

AN EPIC BATTLE THAT LASTED TEN YEARS. A LEGENDARY STORY THAT HAS SURVIVED THOUSANDS.'An inimitable retelling of the siege of Troy . . . Fry's narrative, artfully humorous and rich in detail, breathes life and contemporary relevance into these ancient...

The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage, family and identity; and about travellers, hospitality and the changing meanings of home...

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design...

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent, and is a major text of Hinduism. Its discussion of human goals (artha or 'purpose', kama or 'pleasure', dharma...

'Muse, tell me of a man: a man of much resource, who was made to wander far and long, after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy. Many were the men whose lands he saw and came to know their thinking: many too the miseries at sea which he suffered in his...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780142437650Author HeraclitusFormat PaperbackPage Count 128Imprint Penguin USAPublisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams) 108gDimensions(mm) 196mm * 130mm *...

We all keep secrets. Even from ourselves.'A thrilling, heart-in-throat ride' STEPHEN FRY'An absolute jaw-dropper' LUCY FOLEY'Elegant, sinister, stylish' CHRIS WHITAKER'Grips from start to finish' HARRIET TYCE* * * * *YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN THE MAIDENS...

A GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, AND IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of the acclaimed novel The Mere Wife. Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf - and fifty years after...

Through their sheer range, daring innovation, flawed but eloquent characters and intriguing plots, the plays of Euripides have shocked and stimulated audiences since the fifth century BC. Phoenician Women portrays the rival sons of King Oedipus and their...

A bold, transformative new translation of Ovid's classicOvid's epic poem has, with its timeless stories, inspired and influenced generations of writers and artists, from Shakespeare and Chaucer to Picasso and Ted Hughes. The events it describes - the...

'War, the bringer of tears...' For 2,700 years the Iliad has gripped listeners and readers with the story of Achilles' anger and Hector's death. This tragic episode during the siege of Troy, sparked by a quarrel between the leader of the Greek army...

One of the greatest epics in Western literature, THE ILIAD recounts the story of the Trojan wars. This timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves to its tragic...

Composed in the twelfth century in north-eastern Iran, Attar's great mystical poem is among the most significant of all works of Persian literature. A marvellous, allegorical rendering of the Islamic doctrine of Sufism - an esoteric system concerned with...

The Faerie Queene was the first epic in English and one of the most influential poems in the language for later poets from Milton to Tennyson. Dedicating his work to Elizabeth I, Spenser brilliantly united medieval romance and renaissance epic to expound...

More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west off the coast of what is present Turkey. Little remains today of her writings, which are said to have filled nine papyrus rolls in the great library at Alexandria some...

Together the poetry of Hesiod and Theognis offers a superb introduction to the life and thought of ancient Greece. Hesiod's Theogoney (c. 725 BCE) is a powerful creation myth: an epic, bloody tale of dark forces, sex and violence, tracing the history of...

A eulogy to Italy as the temperate land of perpetual spring, and a celebration of the values of rustic piety, The Georgics is probably the supreme achievement of Latin poetry.About the AuthorVirgil (70-19BC) studied rhetoric and philosophy in Rome where...

IMAGINE SANDALS ON YOUR FEET, A SWORD IN YOUR HAND, HOT SUN BEATING DOWN ON YOUR BRONZE HELMET. ENTER THE WORLD OF STEPHEN FRY'S SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, HEROES'An odyssey through Greek mythology. Brilliant . . . all hail Stephen Fry' Daily...

One of a major new Classics series - books that have changed the history of thought, in sumptuous, clothbound hardbacks.Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written...

These hundred poems and fragments constitute virtually all of Sappho that survives and effectively bring to life the woman whom the Greeks consider to be their greatest lyric poet. Mary Barnard's translations are lean, incisive, direct-the best ever...