Two thousand years old. Finally readable.

Fresh, complete translations of Greek and Roman philosophy — made directly from the original languages into clear modern English.

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13 volumes available · 14 in the series ↓

The Series

Complete, fresh translations — never abridgments, never modernized Victorian English. Available now on Kindle.

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Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

The private notebook of a Roman emperor — notes to himself, never meant for us. A complete new translation from the Greek that sounds the way it felt to write.

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The Philosopher of the Garden

Epicurus — The Complete Surviving Writings

Everything that survives of the most slandered philosopher in history: the letters, the doctrines, the fragments. Pleasure, it turns out, meant something quieter than you've heard.

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The Slave Philosopher

Epictetus — Enchiridion, Discourses & Fragments

Born a slave, he taught emperors. The blunt classroom voice of Stoicism's greatest teacher, complete in one volume — handbook, discourses, and fragments.

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The Roman Socrates

Musonius Rufus — Lectures & Fragments

The teacher of Epictetus, exiled three times for philosophy. His surviving lectures are Stoicism at its most practical: food, family, exile, and how to live with both hands.

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The Defense of Socrates

Plato — The Trial & Death of Socrates

Charged with corrupting the young and dishonoring the gods, Socrates chose death over abandoning the examined life. Plato's four dialogues on the trial and death of the West's first philosopher — Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo — fresh from the Greek.

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Epicurus & the Epicureans

Julian Morrow

How to live without fear. A clear, quote-driven introduction to the most misunderstood school of ancient thought — from Epicurus's Garden to Lucretius's Rome — and what it still offers anyone trying to live well now.

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Moral Letters to Lucilius

Seneca — The Complete Letters

All 124 letters — the greatest correspondence course in how to live ever written. Time, death, friendship, anger, wealth, the steadiness of the mind: the warmest and most quotable book in Stoicism, complete and fresh from the Latin.

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Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle

The foundational book on how to live well — what happiness actually is, why character is built by habit, and how a good life is assembled choice by choice. Aristotle's masterwork, complete and fresh from the Greek in clear modern English.

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On the Nature of Things

Lucretius — De Rerum Natura

A poem two thousand years old that already knew the universe was atoms and empty space, the mind mortal, and the fear of death the one thing worth curing. Lucretius's epic of science and serenity, in a new verse translation from the Latin.

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Confessions

Augustine — The First Autobiography

The first true autobiography ever written: a restless, brilliant man arguing with God and with himself about desire, memory, time, and what he was made for. Complete and fresh from the Latin.

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Xenophon's Socrates

Xenophon — The Other Eyewitness

The other eyewitness. Before Plato turned him into a legend, Xenophon knew Socrates as a friend — and remembered a plainer, shrewder, more useful teacher. Memorabilia, Apology, and Symposium, fresh from the Greek.

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Characters

Theophrastus — Thirty Comic Portraits

Thirty comic sketches of people you already know: the flatterer, the cheapskate, the man who will not stop talking. Aristotle's successor invented the character study — and it is still funny. Fresh from the Greek.

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Moral Essays

Seneca — The Dialogues

Five of Seneca's greatest essays, including On the Shortness of Life — the most famous twenty minutes in Stoic philosophy. Anger, grief, providence, mercy, and time, addressed to real people inside Nero's Rome. Complete and fresh from the Latin.

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The Reading List

1 more volumes are on the way. Get one short note when each is released — a few times a year, nothing else, unsubscribe anytime.

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Forthcoming

Translated and in final preparation.

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The Last of the Romans

Boethius

Forthcoming

About the Series

Most of the classics reach readers through translations written a century or more ago, in English nobody speaks anymore. The conviction behind this series is simple: these books were written to be read, not decoded.

Marcus Aurelius wrote notes to himself, not monuments. Epictetus taught in the blunt, living speech of the classroom. Epicurus wrote letters to friends. A translation should sound the way the original felt to its first readers — direct, plain, and alive.

Every volume is translated fresh from the original Greek or Latin, checked line-by-line against the source for completeness and fidelity, and published with the original work openly identified.

Translated by Julian Morrow. Follow on Amazon to be notified as new volumes are released.

A Word About the Books

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Spotted an error? A line that doesn't land? A question about a rendering choice? Tell us directly — these are living editions, and corrections ship to every reader's device within days.

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Meditations · The Philosopher of the Garden · The Slave Philosopher · The Roman Socrates · The Defense of Socrates · Epicurus & the Epicureans · Moral Letters to Lucilius · Nicomachean Ethics · On the Nature of Things · Confessions · Xenophon's Socrates · Characters · Moral Essays