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 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....

Kurukshetra is a Hindi classic. It gives an extraordinary account of the Kurukshetra war mentioned in the Mahabharata. It describes in vivid details the armed confrontation that took place between the Pandavas and the Kauravas....

Written by Thiruvalluvar in Tamil 10,000 years ago, Thirukkural and its Pearls of Wisdom is as relevant today as it was when written....

Epictetus (c. AD 50-135) was a former Roman slave (he was also lame in one leg, and walked with a crutch) who went on to become a great teacher....

This beautiful collection of 196 of his poems, previously unavailable in English and now translated by native Persian speakers Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin, will appeal to Rumi lovers everywhere who want a guidebook for their inner journey....

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....

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

The Odyssey is the greatest adventure story ever written, and one of the great epic masterpieces of Western literature....

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

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Retold by William Shakespeare and James Anthony, with a foreword by Stephen Fry. Read by Stephen Fry and Paapa Essiedu....

Plato's dialogue, Critias, recalls the story of Atlantis attempting to conquer Athens. In ancient times, the Earth was divide by the gods. Atlantis, allotted to Poseidon, becomes corrupt over time, and Zeus must take matters into his own hands....

You learn how drama makes visible the conflicts and wars of culture in ways other forms cannot manage....

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....

Captured centaurs and satyrs, incompetent seers, people who suddenly change sex, a woman who remembers too much, a man who cannot laugh—these are just some of the colorful characters who feature in the unforgettable stories that ancient Greeks and Romans told in their daily lives....

Saundarya Lahari is a popular Sanskrit hymn celebrating the power and beauty of Sakti, the primordial goddess. In one hundred verses, it underlines the centrality of the feminine principle in Indian thought.

Agamemnon is the first of the three linked tragedies which make up The Oresteia trilogy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. Trilogy as...

The Iliad and The Odyssey are epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer, of which the written versions are dated to the 8th century BCE. Chronicling events in the Greek Bronze Age, this magnificent pair of poems forms the cornerstone of Western literature....

How to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines....

Hamlet, which dates from 1600-1601, is the first in Shakespeare's great series of four tragedies....

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....

A masterful new translation of Suetonius' renowned biography of the twelve Caesars, The Lives of the Caesars brings to life a portrait of the first Roman emperors in stunning detail....

Enjoy the most notable plays of William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello....

Pygmalion remains one of the most popular stories, but mainly in the medium of the musical; the evergreen My Fair Lady....

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.