The Great Books Companion

1 Choose a Text

The Epics

The Iliad

Homer · tr. Samuel Butler

The wrath of Achilles. Ten years of war at Troy. The death of Hector.

The Odyssey

Homer · tr. Samuel Butler

Ten years of wandering. Monsters, gods, and the long road home to Ithaca.

Greek Drama

The Theban Plays

Sophocles · tr. F. Storr

Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone — fate, pride, and impossible choices.

Four Plays of Aeschylus

Aeschylus · tr. E.D.A. Morshead

The Suppliant Maidens, The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound — justice, hubris, and fate.

Philosophy

The Republic

Plato · tr. Benjamin Jowett

What is justice? What is the ideal state? Socrates builds a city in words.

Gorgias

Plato · tr. Benjamin Jowett

Socrates confronts the rhetoricians — what is the difference between flattery and truth?

Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle · tr. F.H. Peters

What is the good life? Aristotle's systematic inquiry into virtue, happiness, and human flourishing.

Politics

Aristotle · tr. Benjamin Jowett

Man is a political animal. Aristotle examines the nature of the state, citizenship, and justice.

★ Premium Latin Collection

The great works of Latin literature — available to premium subscribers.

★

The Aeneid

Virgil · tr. John Dryden

Rome's founding epic — Troy's survivors, the wrath of Juno, and the long road to Italy.

★

Metamorphoses

Ovid · tr. Brookes More

Two hundred and fifty myths of transformation — from creation to Caesar, told in unbroken verse.

★

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius · tr. George Long

A Roman emperor's private journal — Stoic philosophy written not to be read, but to be lived.

★

Tragedies

Seneca · tr. Frank Justus Miller

Medea, Phaedra, Thyestes — the plays that haunted Renaissance drama more than the Greeks ever did.

★

Letters

Pliny the Younger · tr. William Melmoth

Vivid dispatches from Roman life — including the eyewitness account of Vesuvius that is still indispensable.

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Five essential plays — available to premium subscribers.

★

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

The Prince of Denmark, a ghost, and a question that cannot be answered. The most written-about play in the English language.

★

Macbeth

William Shakespeare

The shortest and darkest of the great tragedies. Three witches, one prophecy, and a man who destroys himself to make it true.

★

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

Slower and stranger than you remember. The language is doing more than the plot — every scene moves faster toward the inevitable end.

★

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

The political Shakespeare. A conspiracy, an assassination, and a funeral oration that turns everything upside down.

★

A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's most enchanting comedy — a night in a magical wood where nothing goes as planned and everything goes right.

2 Choose a Guide

P

Prof. Pemberton Emeritus Professor of Classical Literature A retired don with sixty years in the texts — erudite, warm, and gently opinionated.

D

Dr. Reyes Associate Professor of Classical Studies A contemporary American classicist — rigorous, approachable, and passionate about why these texts still matter.

D

Dr. Stavros Historian, archaeologist, and lifelong Athenian A Greek historian who treats these texts as living culture, not museum pieces — enthusiastic, digressive, and infectiously specific.

Or read with a character from the texts

A

Achilles Swift-footed, son of Peleus The greatest warrior of the Achaean army — proud, fierce, and burning for glory.

O

Odysseus Cunning son of Laertes, king of Ithaca The cleverest of all the Greeks — patient, resourceful, and always longing for home.

H

Hector Breaker of horses, prince of Troy Troy's greatest defender — noble, duty-bound, fighting for those he loves.

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