These writings provide a unique view of the height of 17th-century French culture.

This book presents an introduction to the Characters, a collection of thirty amusing descriptions of character types who lived in Athens in the fourth century BCE. The author of the work, Theophrastus, was Aristotle's colleague, his immediate successor and head of his philosophical school for thirty-five years. Pertsinidis' lively, original and scholarly monograph introduces Theophrastus as a Greek philosopher. It also outlines the remarkable influence of the Characters as a literary work and provides a detailed discussion of the work's purpose and its connection with comedy, ethics and rhetoric.

Theophrastus' Characters is a collection of 30 short character-sketches of various types of individuals who might be met in the streets of Athens in the late fourth century BC. It is a work which had a profound influence on European literature, and this is a detailed and elaborate treatment of it. This edition presents an improved text, a translation which is designed both to be readable and to bring out fully the nuances of the very difficult Greek, and a commentary which covers every feature of the text and its interpretation and offers particularly full elucidation of the often enigmatic references to contemporary social practices and historical events. There is also a lengthy introduction, which discusses the antecedents and affiliations of the work, its date, its purpose, and the manuscript tradition. Extensive indexes are also provided, including an Index Verborum.

Theophrastus:Characters is a collection of thirty short character-sketches of various types of individuals who might be met in the streets of Athens in the late fourth century BC. It is a unique work which has had a profound influence on European literature. This edition aims to make it accessible to students, by offering a radically improved text and a commentary which brings out the meaning and nuances of the dazzling but sometimes difficult Greek and offers full elucidation of the often enigmatic references to contemporary social practices and historical events. There is also a full introduction, which discusses the antecedents and affiliations of the work, its date, its purpose, and its literary qualities.

Reproduction of the original: Impressions of Theophrastus Such by George Eliot

Menander (c. 341-291 BC) was the foremost innovator of Greek New Comedy, a dramatic style that moved away from the fantastical to focus upon the problems of ordinary Athenians. This collection contains the full text of 'Old Cantankerous' (Dyskolos), the only surviving complete example of New Comedy, as well as fragments from works including 'The Girl from Samos' and 'The Rape of the Locks', all of which are concerned with domestic catastrophes, the hazards of love and the trials of family life. Written in a poetic style regarded by the ancients as second only to Homer, these polished works - profoundly influential upon both Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence, and the wider Western tradition - may be regarded as the first true comedies of manners.