This pivotal book of the Aeneid has Aeneas - like Odysseus in Odyssey XI - visiting the Underworld. He is poised, as it were, between the world of his ''Homeric'' past, the wanderings he has undergone in the poem''s first half, and the destiny mapped out for his descendants, which culminates in the age of Augustus and his lost successor Marcellus. Aeneas is at once a figure of past, present and future.

This edition replaces the long-serving edition by Gould & Whiteley, making the book more accessible to today''s students and taking account of the most recent scholarship and critical approaches to Virgil. It includes an introduction, annotation to explain language and content, and a comprehensive vocabulary.