Program Books

Swift's masterful satire is as entertaining today as it was when first published in 1726. Written with great wit and invention, Gulliver's Travels has captivated readers for nearly three centuries.

(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)

An immediate success on its publication in 1726, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS was read, as John Gay put it, "from the cabinet council to the nursery." Dean Swift's great satire is presented here in its unexpurgated entirety.

This second volume of the history of the Han dynasty consists of chapters dealing principally with the reign of Emperor Wu, one of the most energetic and strong-willed of China's Rulers. Here the historian is chronicling events he has witnessed and writing of the men he personally knows or has known. In Nagano Hozan's (1783-1837) words, He makes us see in our minds the character of the men of the time, and this is why he is a great historian.:

The first volume of Dante's Divine Comedy

Guided by the poet Virgil, Dante plunges to the very depths of Hell and embarks on his arduous journey towards God. Together they descend through the nine circles of the underworld and encounter the tormented souls of the damned - from heretics and pagans to gluttons, criminals and seducers - who tell of their sad fates and predict events still to come in Dante's life. In this first part of his Divine Comedy, Dante fused satire and humour with intellect and soaring passion to create an immortal Christian allegory of mankind's search for self-knowledge and spiritual enlightenment.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The stirring continuation of the themes begun in "Henry IV, Part One" again pits a rebellion within the State and that master of misrule, Falstaff, against the maturing of Prince Hal. Alternating scenes between bawdy tavern and regal court, between revelry and politics, Shakespeare probes at the sources, uses, and responsibilities of power as an old king dies and a young king must choose between a ruler's solemn duty and a merry but dissipated friend, Falstaff. The play represents Shakespeare at the peak of his maturity in writing historical drama and comedy.

The authoritative edition of Henry IV, Part 1 from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.

Family relationships are at the center of Henry IV, Part 1. King Henry IV and Prince Hal form one major father-son pair, with Henry in despair because Hal lives a dissolute life. The father-son pair of Hotspur (Lord Henry Percy) and his father, the Earl of Northumberland, is in seeming contrast; the king envies Northumberland "his Harry," wishing he could claim the gallant Hotspur as his own. Meanwhile, Hal has entered into a quasi-father-son relationship with a disreputable but amusing knight, Sir John Falstaff.

Another strand of action centers on still more family relationships. Hotspur's stand against Henry focuses on Hotspur's brother-in-law, Mortimer. Mortimer, who fought against the Welsh magician Owen Glendower, was defeated and captured and has married Glendower's daughter. King Henry pronounces Mortimer a traitor whom he will not ransom. Hotspur, in declaring war on Henry, sees himself as fighting for Mortimer, his wife's brother.

This edition includes:
-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
-Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
-Scene-by-scene plot summaries
-A key to the play's famous lines and phrases
-An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books
-An annotated guide to further reading

Essay by Alexander Leggatt

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel

The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare's time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With definitive texts and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

This book presents the major teachings of Mahāyāna Buddhism in a precise, dramatic, and even humorous form. For two millennia this sūtra, called the "jewel of the Mahāyāna Sūtras," has enjoyed immense popularity among Mahāyāna Buddhists in India, central and southeast Asia, Japan, and especially China, where its incidents were the basis for a style in art and literature prevalent during several centuries.

Robert Thurman's translation makes available, in relatively nontechnical English, the Tibetan version of this key Buddhist scripture, previously known to the English-speaking world only through translations from Chinese texts. The Tibetan version is generally conceded to be more faithful to the original Sanskrit than are the Chinese texts. The Tibetan version also is clearer, richer, and more precise in its philosophical and psychological expression. The books of the sūtra are accompanied by an introduction by Dr. Thurman and by three glossaries: Sanskrit terms, numerical categories, and technical terms.

The Iliad is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, for which Barry Powell, one of the twenty-first century's leading Homeric scholars, has given us a magnificent new translation. Graceful, lucid, and energetic, Powell's translation renders the Homeric Greek with a simplicity and
dignity reminiscent of the original. The text immediately engrosses students with its tight and balanced rhythms, while the incantatory repetitions evoke a continuous stream of sound that offers as good an impression of Homer's Greek as one could hope to attain without learning the language.

Accessible, poetic, and accurate, Powell's translation is an excellent fit for today's students. With swift, transparent language that rings both ancient and modern, it exposes them to all of the rage, pleasure, pathos, and humor that are Homer's Iliad. Both the translation and the introduction are
informed by the best recent scholarship.

FEATURES

* Uses well-modulated verse and accurate English that is contemporary but never without dignity

* Powell's introduction sets the poem in its philological, mythological, and historical contexts

* Features unique on-page notes, facilitating students' engagement with the poem

* Embedded illustrations accompanied by extensive captions provide Greek and Roman visual sources for key passages in each of the poem's twenty-four books

* Eight maps (the most of any available translation) provide geographic context for the poem's many place names

* Audio recordings (read by Powell) of fifteen important passages are available at www.oup.com/us/powell and indicated in the text margin by an icon

A new modern translation of "The Iliad" that is fast-moving, direct, emphasizes the action of the story, and is especially helpful for those first encountering this classic work.

"Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus / and its devastation." For sixty years, that's how Homer has begun the Iliad in English, in Richmond Lattimore's faithful translation--the gold standard for generations of students and general readers.

This long-awaited new edition of Lattimore's Iliad is designed to bring the book into the twenty-first century--while leaving the poem as firmly rooted in ancient Greece as ever. Lattimore's elegant, fluent verses--with their memorably phrased heroic epithets and remarkable fidelity to the Greek--remain unchanged, but classicist Richard Martin has added a wealth of supplementary materials designed to aid new generations of readers. A new introduction sets the poem in the wider context of Greek life, warfare, society, and poetry, while line-by-line notes at the back of the volume offer explanations of unfamiliar terms, information about the Greek gods and heroes, and literary appreciation. A glossary and maps round out the book.

The result is a volume that actively invites readers into Homer's poem, helping them to understand fully the worlds in which he and his heroes lived--and thus enabling them to marvel, as so many have for centuries, at Hektor and Ajax, Paris and Helen, and the devastating rage of Achilleus.

Other competent translations of Homer exist, but none accomplish what Merrill aims for: to convey to the reader-listener in translation the meaning and the sounds of Homer, coming as close as possible to the poetry of the original. Merrill accomplishes this virtuosic achievement by translating Homer's Greek into English hexameters, a process requiring not only a full understanding of the original Greek, but also an unusual mastery of the sounds, rhythms, and
nuances of English.
---Stephen G. Daitz, Professor Emeritus of Classics, City University of New York
Rodney Merrill's translation of Homer's Iliad offers a form of English poetry particularly relevant to the epic, producing a strong musical setting that brings many elements of the narrative truly to life. Most notable are the many battle scenes, in which Homer's strong dactylic hexameters make credible the war-lust in the deeds of the combatants. Until his retirement, Rodney Merrill taught English composition and comparative literature at Stanford and Berkeley. In addition to his translation of Homer's Odyssey, he is the author of Chaucer's Broche of Thebes.

Belonging in the immortal company of the works of Homer, Virgil, Milton, and Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece is a visionary journey that takes readers through the torment of Hell.

The first part of Dante's Divine Comedy is many things: a moving human drama, a supreme expression of the Middle Ages, a glorification of the ways of God, and a magnificent protest against the ways in which men have thwarted the divine plan. One of the few literary works that has enjoyed a fame both immediate and enduring, The Inferno remains powerful after seven centuries. It confronts the most universal values--good and evil, free will and predestination--while remaining intensely personal and ferociously political, for it was born out of the anguish of a man who saw human life blighted by the injustice and corruption of his times.

Translated by John Ciardi
With an Introduction by Archibald T. MacAllister
and an Afterword by Edward M. Cifelli

Translated by Anthony Esolen
Illustrations by Gustave Doré

A groundbreaking bilingual edition of Dante's masterpiece that includes a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reproduce Dante's key sources and influences.