Ancient, Classical & Medieval Literature

One of the most significant books ever written by a head of state, the Meditations are a collection of philosophical thoughts by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius....

A lean, fleet-footed translation that recaptures Homer’s “nimble gallop” and brings an ancient epic to new life....

Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer’s other great epic―the most revered war poem of all time....

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are unquestionably two of the greatest epic masterpieces in Western literature....

Milton tells the story of man's creation, fall and redemption, "to justify the ways of God to men"....

The great adventure story tells of Odysseus, a veteran of the Trojan War, who - through a landscape peopled with monsters, sea nymphs, evil enchantresses, and vengeful gods....

Perfect for any listener who is searching for a deceptively simple yet powerful approach to life, this book offers you a source of inner strength and guidance, allowing you to enrich your life and face your challenges with a renewed level of insight....

The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!). These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance....

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War....

In this BBC full-cast production of Much Ado About Nothing, some handsome soldiers return from battle. Yet one soldier finds himself locked in a merry war of his own....

Goethe’s two-part dramatic work, Faust, based on a traditional theme, and finally completed in 1831, is an exploration of that restless intellectual and emotional urge which found its fullest expression in the European Romantic movement....

Ovid's sensuous and witty poetry brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation - often as a result of love or lust - where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings....

You'll become engrossed in "the romance of the intellect," as Professor Sugrue opens a path for you into the inner structure of these timeless dialogues....

Plutarchs's (46-120 A.D.) epic chronicle of the lives of great Grecians and Romans....

Shakespeare's most sophisticated comedy is a riotous tale of hopelessly unrequited passions and mistaken identity....

Contained here is Julius Caesar's own account of his military adventures in Gaul at the head of the Roman army, uniquely presented in Caesar's first-person perspective....

Born a slave, the Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c. 55-135 AD) taught that mental freedom is supreme, since it can liberate one anywhere, even in a prison. In How to Be Free, A. A. Long provides a superb new edition of Epictetus's celebrated guide to the Stoic philosophy of life...

Transcendentalism embodies the concept that people have a deeper and more profound understanding of the world around them than simply by what they can glimpse with their senses....

The complete play in five acts....

With this stunning modern verse translation, Robert Fagles reintroduces Virgil's Aeneid to a whole new generation....

The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran is now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition.

Seeking to depose his brother Artaxerxes and take his place upon the Persian throne, Cyrus the Younger leads the 10,000 mercenaries on a dangerous campaign deep into the heart of Persia....

In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time....

Beowulf is the greatest surviving work of literature in Old English, unparalleled in its epic grandeur and scope....

John Lithgow has compiled an outstanding collection of memorable poems and has gathered his famous friends to read them....