John Conington’s three-volume edition of The Works of Virgil, begun in 1852, has long been unavailable except in rare second-hand sets. The whole work is now being reissued in six affordable paperbacks, with new introductions setting the commentary in its context. Well into the twentieth century Conington’s Virgil remained the sine qua non for school and undergraduate students and their teachers; Conington’s commentary is remarkably close and uncompromising in its engagement with the detail of Virgil’s Latin, as well as its literary sensitivity; it still has much to offer the modern reader.This volume includes Conington’s general introduction to Virgil and his introduction to the Eclogues, with Virgil’s text and Conington’s commentary on the text, and with index. In addition, Philip Hardie introduces the work of Conington as a whole (and of his pupil Nettleship, who completed the Works in 1871), while Brian W. Breed assesses their approaches to the Eclogues in particular, outlining the directions in which scholarship has subsequently led, and may lead. The new introductions also include substantial bibliographies.
