The Divine Comedy is widely considered to be the preeminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view of the 14th century. The first-person narrative describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven, while allegorically the poem represents the soul's journey towards God. In Dante's work, Virgil is presented as human reason and Beatrice is presented as divine knowledge. This edition contains the famed illustrations by Gustave Doré which is matched by the inimitable translation of H. W. Longfellow, the first and formidable American translator of the Divine Comedy who is still considered as one of the best translators of this great classic.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.