The Metamorphoses (Barnes & Noble Classics)

The Metamorphoses, by Ovid, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
Biographies of the authors
Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
Footnotes and endnotes
Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
Comments by other famous authors
Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
Bibliographies for further reading
Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

First published in 8 A.D., Ovid's Metamorphoses remains one of the most accessible and attractive avenues to the riches of Greek mythology. Beginning with the creation of the universe and ending with the death and deification of Julius Caesar, Ovid's masterful epic poem features a rich assortment of tales, including those of Jason and the Argonauts, Orpheus and Eurydice, the Trojan War, Echo and Narcissus, the slaying of the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus, Hercules, Aeneas and Dido, the wedding of Perseus and Andromeda, and many others. These stories all have one element in common: transformation. Mortals become gods, animals turn to stone, and humans change into flowers, trees, or stars. Mingling pathos, humor, beauty, and cruelty, Ovid reveals how the endless ebb and flow of the universe itself is mirrored in the often paradoxical and always arbitrary fate of the poem's characters, both human and divine.

A cosmic comedy of manners, Metamorphoses was read with delight in Ovid's own time and continues to charm audiences today, providing a treasure trove of myth and legend from which the whole of Western art and literature has derived incalculable inspiration.