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....

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....

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....

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

Dating to the ninth century BC, Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War....

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....

A landmark new translation of Homer’s most popular epic by distinguished author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn.

Stacy Keach and Jane Kaczmarek star in this 1949 masterpiece by Arthur Miller, a searing portrait of the physical, emotional, and psychological costs of the American dream....

Step into a world where wit is sharp, glances speak volumes, and the dance of manners conceals deeper truths. Pride and Prejudice isn't just a...

The Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the world's largest Shakespeare collection, brings Julius Caesar to life with this new full-length, full-cast dramatic recording....

The epic grandeur of Dante's masterpiece has inspired readers and listeners for 700 years and has entered the human imagination....

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....

In this book, for the first time, Philip Freeman brings together the best stories of Celtic mythology....

The great legacy of The Iliad is its shattering revelation of what it means to be human in the face of life's uncertainty and fleeting mortality....

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide, his ascent of Mount Purgatory and his encounter with his dead love Beatrice, and finally, his arrival in Heaven....

Robert Fitzgerald's translation of The Odyssey has been the standard translation for more than three generations of students and poets. Macmillan Audio is delighted to publish the first ever audio edition of this classic work, the greatest of all epic poems....

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....

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....

This final play from the pen of Oscar Wilde is a stylish send-up of Victorian courtship and manners, complete with assumed names, mistaken lovers, and a lost handbag....

This translation of The Iliad equals Fitzgerald's earlier Odyssey in power and imagination. It recreates the original action as conceived by Homer, using fresh and flexible blank verse that is both lyrical and dramatic.

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

This famous work by Lucretius is a masterpiece of didactic poetry, and it still stands today as the finest exposition of Epicurean philosophy ever written....

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....

In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce....

Step into a world where wit is sharp, glances speak volumes, and the dance of manners conceals deeper truths. Pride and Prejudice isn't just a novel—it's a perfectly tuned social symphony composed by one of literature's most insightful observers, Jane Austen. This timeless classic captures the tension between pride and vulnerability, societal expectation and personal desire, all through language as elegant as the world it critiques. In its pages—and now in your ears—you'll encounter unforgettable characters whose joys, flaws, and revelations still echo today.

The journeys of Paul Theroux take place not only in exotic, unexpected places of the world but in the thoughts, reading, and emotions of the writer himself. A gathering of people, places, and ideas in fifty glittering pieces of gold.

John Milton's On the Morning of Christ's Nativity is no ordinary Christmas poem. Written when he was just twenty-one, it reveals an early glimpse of the depth and ambition that would later shape Paradise Lost. Here, the nativity is not sentimental but cosmic: a quiet moment that echoes across heaven, earth, and myth. This is poetry as vision—blending classical imagery, biblical themes, and rich musical language. Angels descend, stars pause in wonder, and the natural world falls into a hush. Pagan gods retreat into silence, as if even they recognize the shift in power.

Based on historical characters of the seventh-century Iranian court and written 850 years ago, the narrative poem about Khosrow and Shirin shares a shelf with the most intensely romantic classic stories readers love, from Tristan and Isolde to Layla and Majnun to Romeo and Juliet to Gatsby and Daisy.

Als Götz von Berlichingen 1773 erschien, war das Stück eine Sensation - und machte seinen Autor Johann Wolfgang von Goethe schlagartig weltberühmt. Die Abkehr von der aristotelischen Dramenstruktur der Einheit von Handlung, Raum und Zeit war ein mutiger Schritt; das Sturm-und-Drang-Drama war Vorbild für Schillers "Räuber". Das Drama des rechtschaffenen Ritters Götz von Berlichingen, dessen Freiheitsliebe und Kaisertreue gegen einen intriganten Adel auf verlorenem Posten stehen, ist noch heute ein beliebtes Stück auf den Bühnen - und Bestandteil vieler Literaturlisten der Schulen!