Natural History :  A Selection -  Pliny the Elder

Natural History

A Selection

By:  Pliny the Elder

Paperback | 1 October 1991 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $29.99

$24.90

17%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $6.22 with

Aims to ship in 5 to 10 business days

Pliny's Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling acute observation with often wild speculation, it offers a fascinating view of the world as it was understood in the first century AD, whether describing the danger of diving for sponges, the first water-clock, or the use of asses' milk to remove wrinkles. Pliny himself died while investigating the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in AD 79, and the natural curiosity that brought about his death is also very much evident in the Natural History - a book that proved highly influential right up until the Renaissance and that his nephew, Pliny the younger, described 'as full of variety as nature itself'.

John F. Healy has made a fascinating and varied selection from the Natural History for this clear, modern translation. In his introduction, he discusses the book and its sources topic by topic. This edition also includes a full index and notes.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

More in Literary Essays

What Artists See : Essays - Quentin Sprague

RRP $29.99

$26.25

12%
OFF
We Are Not Numbers : The Voices of Gaza's Youth - Ahmed Alnaouq

RRP $36.99

$29.75

20%
OFF
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

RRP $22.99

$13.35

42%
OFF
Discourses and Selected Writings : Penguin Classics - Epictetus
Freewheeling : Essays on Cycling - Various

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
The Anthropocene Reviewed : The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller - John Green
The Republic : Penguin Classics - Plato

RRP $17.99

$16.75

The Prince : Penguin Pocket Hardbacks - Niccolo Machiavelli

RRP $14.99

$14.25

The Myth of Sisyphus : Penguin Modern Classics - Albert Camus

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
On Tyranny : Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century - Timothy Snyder
Meditations : Design by Coralie Bickford-Smith - Marcus Aurelius

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Bluets - Maggie Nelson

Hardcover

RRP $22.99

$20.35

11%
OFF
Backstage : Stories of a writing life - Donna Leon

RRP $29.99

$24.90

17%
OFF
Silent Catastrophes : Essays in Austrian Literature - W.G. Sebald
Gift from the Sea - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

RRP $19.99

$18.25

The Diary of a Young Girl : 70th Anniversary Edition - Anne Frank
Sister Outsider : Penguin Modern Classics - Audre Lorde

RRP $22.99

$20.35

11%
OFF
Fascism and Democracy - George Orwell

RRP $4.99

$4.95