I got myself Marcus Aurelius' Meditations in this edition, and I absolutely love it (the book as physical object, I mean, though I also like the content).
Since I intend to read more classical authors, I was wondering if you'd have an opinion about this edition. I'm plenty happy with it but I am wondering if newer translations are better and if so, why.
I especially like the idea of building up a collection of these books as I read them. It looks great and I like the familiarity of it.
Another absolutely amazing series of books is the Library of America one, whose books are so gorgeous I'd almost attempt to have intercourse with them. It is itself inspired by the French Pléïades, of which I have one volume, and is also great, but you'd better like extremely thin (Bible thin) paper, and I'm not too crazy about that.
AFAIK these are pretty god tier, but expensive as shit and much longer than most versions of the same book because of all the footnotes and the original text also being included. Most of us in the old world are pretty much cucked out of these.
Not too expensive, but you're right, they include the original texts so they're twice as big as others. (And also, it makes you only read the right page afterwards... Found myself rereading the introduction to my book and I stuck to the right, only found out after 3 pages that something was amiss...)
For money's worth, you WANT to check the Library of America because not only are these books fucking gorgeous, but they also give you a massive amount of material for cheaper than it would cost you for each individual work. They're about 50 bucks, but you get everything Poe wrote for that much. I have a few of these. If you like science fiction, they have a few volumes by Philip K. Dick. One thing though, LoA selects, they don't publish everything by an author, so it's subjective. The Lovecraft volume is slim and one wonders why they didn't just make a thicker book with everything he wrote, since it wasn't much.
Isaac Morales
I'm slowly building a collection myself. The long term goal is to get all the Greek philosophical volumes plus a few other things of general interest.
Now, everyone, after Marcus Aurelius. I want to read Cicero. Do you suggest any specific authors? I'm especially into Roman everything nowadays.
>Total War (tried once but never resumed playing) >several YouTube channels that explain Roman history (available on requests) >bought a Vincero watch that has a bit of Roman marble at the back (Yes, this is tongue in cheek but also 100% true.)
Daniel Cruz
Not familiar with this book, however I will say that the edition of Hesiod's Theogony is excellent while Ovid's Metamorphoses seems quite poor. Translations need to be sought out on a case by case basis, unfortunately.
Gavin Collins
>Now, everyone, after Marcus Aurelius. I want to read Cicero. Do you suggest any specific authors? I'm especially into Roman everything nowadays.
The cantankerous Seneca is eminently readable. He's a treasure-trove of witty irritations and practical wisdom.
Does anyone have the list of the works? I'm on the Loeb website but can't find it yet.
Also, I am to understand that Loeb was a man who wanted to basically get Harvard to have all the great works of Romans and Greeks available to the American people.
Their books are so fucking comfy. I love books that make the physical act of reading a pleasure.
>soft paper >solid paper >probably doesn't go yellow with time because acid-free >hardcover (mind you, in Europe, hardcover books are rare, except maybe in the UK)
>Translations need to be sought out on a case by case basis, unfortunately.
Even the volumes with poorer translations are worth having for easy access to the Greek or Latin in facing translation--assuming some facility with the old tongues.
>The cantankerous Seneca is eminently readable. He's a treasure-trove of witty irritations and practical wisdom. Sold. Man, I should possibly have stayed on this board for the writing quality of the posts... There's seldom a board I don't hate on this website because of the common retardation. This thread is going great, so we shall see.
>there are anons in here who have a Loeb collection Excellent.
Daniel Turner
Did Harvard students have to learn Greek and latin in the early 20th century or was that mostly intended for students who chose those topics?
Nathan Brooks
Holy shit, the Latin books are RED inside?
Actually, the Greek ones, inside (meaning not the dustjacket), what colour are they? I thought it was grey but I am slightly colourblind and couldn't tell if this was actually green.
Help.
Also don't post things colorblind people cannot read.
>I am to understand that Loeb was a man who wanted to basically get Harvard to have all the great works of Romans and Greeks available to the American people. The idea was to make every Greek or Latin work worth reading available to the non-classicist. It was assumed that a classicist would read these in the original languages. There was some tension in the beginning since some students of the classics began using the Loeb volumes. Some thought this was acceptable so long as it helped young students master the languages; many more worried that the books were crutches that would hamper the ability to learn Greek and Latin. Today, they are very much in the academic mainstream, but it wasn't always so. As for this collection having every ancient book worth reading as its goal, what this actually means continues to change. Books which were once excluded are now being introduced. Another thing that has changed is bowdlerization. In the early days of Loeb, certain passages were censored.
>red and green aren't two separate lists >I'm OK with that
Might make a nasty bookshelf if you respect the numbers, though.
Zachary Murphy
Unless you're reading the Greek/Latin or looking for specific works these things aren't worth the price in my opinion. If you're just really passionate about the Greeks then I guess there's no reason not to, but.. I feel like these are best for people that can read them in both languages.
Connor Gutierrez
>Did Harvard students have to learn Greek and latin in the early 20th century or was that mostly intended for students who chose those topics?
These requirements would slacken considerably later, especially once enrolment exploded in the 1960s. I'm not too sure about the requirements from 1900 to 1950. We should probably remember that these were times of great discorded with two World Wars weighing heavy on this period.
Jordan Myers
>starting at $5.00 Jesus Christ I wish I was in that bookshop
Camden Gutierrez
Jesus Christ... In my own studies, you were forced to choose Greek or Latin for 2 years. I did 2 years of Latin and have absolutely nothing to show for it. I once knew the whole declensions by heart, though.
Lucas Perez
I have to say, this thread is great. Maybe Yea Forums greatly improved while other boards plummeted in quality, but man, I did not expect so much awesome stuff in such a short amount of time.
Charles Turner
>Am I to assume that my recent Marcus Aurelius has bits censored possibly? The translation is from 1915 or so I believe.
I'm not certain, but the history of bowdlerization is a strange and interesting one. The whole thing is mostly regrettable, but at the same time I think it helped make the classics more of a secret club which would have been fun. In some cases, 'dirty' passages were translated from Greek to Latin instead of English, or from Latin to Italian--allowing the discerning scholar to read the real thing.
Nicholas White
>mfw the author quotes some French and doesn't translate it >I know French >I'm in the secret club >devilish.jpg
Liam Rivera
God, I wish I had the opportunity to learn Greek and Latin in school before uni. Not even in a "le wrong generation" way, but the opportunity would have been nice.
Charles Martin
Certainly, but then just get the original along with the superior translation if necessary.
Robert Hall
Some of you might find this interesting or useful:
Why not start learning Latin now? I say Latin because I would imagine it's somewhat easier (but could be wrong). It's never too late!
Christian Collins
> just get the original
Getting a physical copy in the original language is kinda hard for most works unless you have access to a uni library near you.
Brayden Green
Goddam, just when I thought this thread couldn't get better, this guy shows up.
Is it usually this amazing on Yea Forums? I stopped coming several years ago because I had had enough of the ambient idiocy (I'm a real scholar), but things may have changed a whole lot since then. You tell me.
Jackson Murphy
No it isn't, leave before the guenonfags come again.
Jacob Roberts
>the original text also being included the whole point of these is to read the original text
Oh, I imbibe. But can one of you fucks become the next Orff before I die?
Chase White
The dates are all over the place, and the whole thing is a bit of a mystery as far as I know.
>I haven’t been able to ascertain when these particular volumes were first printed. My own collection of Loebs includes three of these oddball editions: a Horace printed in 1952, a Xenophon from 1956, and a Plato from 1962. I had never looked closely enough to notice the swastikas until I began research for this essay. There are at least 10 different volumes with this type of dust jacket advertised on used-book websites, with print dates as early as 1928 (a volume of Cicero) and continuing on through the 1930s and ’40s and into the ’50s.
Samuel Thomas
>Loab and other great book editions! I'm a booklet so that may explain it, but I bought my first penguins classics and it is by far the best paperback I've ever had. Granted the others were wordsworths and vintages, but the product quality makes me never want to buy another one again.
Easton Gomez
Would any of these made it onto the editions themselves? I'm a hardcover loser who sets aside the dustjackets.
Bentley Cook
>Fair enough, didn't realise it was that difficult to get just the original.
It's not too tricky for the bigger names like Plato, but it gets very tricky for lesser figures. In many cases the books haven't been reprinted in over a hundred years making them all but impossible to even purchase unless you are tremendously wealthy. As for the big names, cost is still a concern. Take the pictured volume. I see that it is 68$ on Amazon.ca--more than twice the price of a Loeb volume.
The actual books themselves might have been different in subtle ways, but I know nothing about it.
Carson Jones
Penguin is good shit. I'm OP and I have of ton of Penguins. I liked the Silver classics series. The black ones are classy too. Penguin did humanity a great service and as far as paperbacks go, I can't imagine anything better.
Nathaniel Hill
Damn, any figures for the drop of people studying Latin/Greek?
Nicholas Sullivan
>Sun-bleached Loebs in the University of Sydney Classics department
As far as prices go, I couldn't say. You'll find these older books listed all the time in bibliographies. The editions are almost always German making getting ahold of the things trickier. Even though they were made in Germany, the Greek texts had Latin intros which is neat.
The I Tatti Renaissance Library is really nice too. I only have a few, but I like them a lot. It's the same idea with facing translations, but the physical quality is higher. The books are larger too which is both good and bad.
Some of the older volumes are worth owning BECAUSE of their dubious translation decisions. Case in point:
>In 1931 Loeb translation of Plutarch's 'Moralia' whenever Babbitt found a Greek dialect he translated it as Scots: so Agesilaus laments deaths in intra-Greek warfare: "Hech, sirs, for Greece, wha her ane sel' had killed sae mony men — as mony as micht pit doon a' the barbarians."
