Ovid, Volume 1: Heroides

The Heroides , a collection of verse letters, fuses Ovid's interests in erotics and myth into a new genre in which experiments with epistolary form and the psychology of first-person narrative were to have profound influence on European literature. While the letter form allows the imagined legendary lovers to speak in their 'own' voices, the pen of Ovid manipulates the literary tradition, of which the poems are a part, to create effects of pathos, irony and humour. This edition [of 1898] remains an essential resource for the poems, but has long been difficult to obtain. It contains what is still the only detailed commentary in English on the whole collection, as well as extensive discussion of the text and its transmission. It also offers the full text of the translation of Heroides into Greek prose by the Byzantine scholar Maximus Planudes.

Arthur Palmer was Professor of Latin at the University of Dublin. The edition was completed after his death by his colleague L C Purser.