Plutarch Selected Lives: From The Parallel Lives Of The Noble Grecians And Romans
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth/board in good condition
Pages: Good
One of antiquity's most enduring and celebrated works, Plutarch Selected Lives presents a curated collection drawn from the monumental Parallel Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, a biographical masterpiece composed by the Greek historian Plutarch around 100 AD. Through paired portraits of legendary figures — Alexander the Great alongside Julius Caesar, Demosthenes beside Cicero — Plutarch chronicles the virtues, vices, and defining moments of the ancient world's most consequential men, crafting intimate studies of character that transcend mere historical record. This edition employs the distinguished Dryden Translation, the celebrated 17th-century rendering prepared for the landmark English edition of 1676, which itself shaped the literary imagination of Shakespeare and countless generations of writers that followed. Plutarch's genius lies not in dry chronicle but in the art of moral biography: he argues through the lives of his subjects that character is destiny, and that the study of great men illuminates the path for those who follow. The Franklin Library edition, produced with illustrations specially prepared for this volume, stands as a testament to the enduring prestige of this text — a work that has shaped Western thought on leadership, ethics, and civic virtue for nearly two millennia. Whether one approaches it as history, philosophy, or literature, Plutarch Selected Lives remains an inexhaustible source of wisdom, leaving the reader to wonder which ancient life most closely mirrors our own turbulent present.
Author: Plutarch
Format: Hardback
Published: 1982, The Franklin Library, Franklin Center, Pennsylvania
Genre: Ancient history
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth/board in good condition
Pages: Good
One of antiquity's most enduring and celebrated works, Plutarch Selected Lives presents a curated collection drawn from the monumental Parallel Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, a biographical masterpiece composed by the Greek historian Plutarch around 100 AD. Through paired portraits of legendary figures — Alexander the Great alongside Julius Caesar, Demosthenes beside Cicero — Plutarch chronicles the virtues, vices, and defining moments of the ancient world's most consequential men, crafting intimate studies of character that transcend mere historical record. This edition employs the distinguished Dryden Translation, the celebrated 17th-century rendering prepared for the landmark English edition of 1676, which itself shaped the literary imagination of Shakespeare and countless generations of writers that followed. Plutarch's genius lies not in dry chronicle but in the art of moral biography: he argues through the lives of his subjects that character is destiny, and that the study of great men illuminates the path for those who follow. The Franklin Library edition, produced with illustrations specially prepared for this volume, stands as a testament to the enduring prestige of this text — a work that has shaped Western thought on leadership, ethics, and civic virtue for nearly two millennia. Whether one approaches it as history, philosophy, or literature, Plutarch Selected Lives remains an inexhaustible source of wisdom, leaving the reader to wonder which ancient life most closely mirrors our own turbulent present.