Loeb Classical Library

[Anonymous No.13394641]

I got myself Marcus Aurelius' Meditations in this edition, and I absolutely love it (the book as physical object, I mean, though I also like the content).

Since I intend to read more classical authors, I was wondering if you'd have an opinion about this edition. I'm plenty happy with it but I am wondering if newer translations are better and if so, why.

I especially like the idea of building up a collection of these books as I read them. It looks great and I like the familiarity of it.

Another absolutely amazing series of books is the Library of America one, whose books are so gorgeous I'd almost attempt to have intercourse with them. It is itself inspired by the French Pléïades, of which I have one volume, and is also great, but you'd better like extremely thin (Bible thin) paper, and I'm not too crazy about that.

ITT: Loab and other great book editions!

[Anonymous No.13394645]

>>13394641
I'm assuming the green ones are for Greek and the red ones for Latin, if anyone can confirm...

[Anonymous No.13394666]

I'll post some pics to illustrate.

[Anonymous No.13394672]

>>13394641
AFAIK these are pretty god tier, but expensive as shit and much longer than most versions of the same book because of all the footnotes and the original text also being included. Most of us in the old world are pretty much cucked out of these.

[Anonymous No.13394685]

>>13394672
>old world
Come to real world

[Anonymous No.13394695]

>>13394645

I can confirm.

[Anonymous No.13394703]

>>13394672
https://www.amazon.de/s?k=Loeb+classical&__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Not too expensive, but you're right, they include the original texts so they're twice as big as others. (And also, it makes you only read the right page afterwards... Found myself rereading the introduction to my book and I stuck to the right, only found out after 3 pages that something was amiss...)

For money's worth, you WANT to check the Library of America because not only are these books fucking gorgeous, but they also give you a massive amount of material for cheaper than it would cost you for each individual work. They're about 50 bucks, but you get everything Poe wrote for that much. I have a few of these. If you like science fiction, they have a few volumes by Philip K. Dick. One thing though, LoA selects, they don't publish everything by an author, so it's subjective. The Lovecraft volume is slim and one wonders why they didn't just make a thicker book with everything he wrote, since it wasn't much.

[Anonymous No.13394705]

I'm slowly building a collection myself. The long term goal is to get all the Greek philosophical volumes plus a few other things of general interest.

[Anonymous No.13394716]

>>13394685
>boner why

>>13394695
>based confirmer


Now, everyone, after Marcus Aurelius. I want to read Cicero. Do you suggest any specific authors? I'm especially into Roman everything nowadays.

>Total War (tried once but never resumed playing)
>several YouTube channels that explain Roman history (available on requests)
>bought a Vincero watch that has a bit of Roman marble at the back
(Yes, this is tongue in cheek but also 100% true.)

[Anonymous No.13394728]

>>13394641
Not familiar with this book, however I will say that the edition of Hesiod's Theogony is excellent while Ovid's Metamorphoses seems quite poor.
Translations need to be sought out on a case by case basis, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.13394734]

>>13394716
>Now, everyone, after Marcus Aurelius. I want to read Cicero. Do you suggest any specific authors? I'm especially into Roman everything nowadays.

The cantankerous Seneca is eminently readable. He's a treasure-trove of witty irritations and practical wisdom.

[Anonymous No.13394737]

>>13394705
That post made me happy. Absolutely beautiful.

Does anyone have the list of the works? I'm on the Loeb website but can't find it yet.

Also, I am to understand that Loeb was a man who wanted to basically get Harvard to have all the great works of Romans and Greeks available to the American people.

Their books are so fucking comfy. I love books that make the physical act of reading a pleasure.

>soft paper
>solid paper
>probably doesn't go yellow with time because acid-free
>hardcover (mind you, in Europe, hardcover books are rare, except maybe in the UK)

POST MORE

[Anonymous No.13394749]

>>13394728
>Translations need to be sought out on a case by case basis, unfortunately.

Even the volumes with poorer translations are worth having for easy access to the Greek or Latin in facing translation--assuming some facility with the old tongues.

[Anonymous No.13394765]

>>13394734
>The cantankerous Seneca is eminently readable. He's a treasure-trove of witty irritations and practical wisdom.
Sold. Man, I should possibly have stayed on this board for the writing quality of the posts... There's seldom a board I don't hate on this website because of the common retardation. This thread is going great, so we shall see.

>there are anons in here who have a Loeb collection
Excellent.

[Anonymous No.13394768]

>>13394749
Did Harvard students have to learn Greek and latin in the early 20th century or was that mostly intended for students who chose those topics?

[Anonymous No.13394780]

Holy shit, the Latin books are RED inside?

Actually, the Greek ones, inside (meaning not the dustjacket), what colour are they? I thought it was grey but I am slightly colourblind and couldn't tell if this was actually green.

Help.

Also don't post things colorblind people cannot read.

[Anonymous No.13394799]

>>13394737
>Does anyone have the list of the works? I'm on the Loeb website but can't find it yet.
The website is a bit iffy. You'll find a useful checklist in this PDF "brochure":
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalogs/hup-brochure-2017-2018-loeb-classical-library.pdf

>I am to understand that Loeb was a man who wanted to basically get Harvard to have all the great works of Romans and Greeks available to the American people.
The idea was to make every Greek or Latin work worth reading available to the non-classicist. It was assumed that a classicist would read these in the original languages. There was some tension in the beginning since some students of the classics began using the Loeb volumes. Some thought this was acceptable so long as it helped young students master the languages; many more worried that the books were crutches that would hamper the ability to learn Greek and Latin. Today, they are very much in the academic mainstream, but it wasn't always so. As for this collection having every ancient book worth reading as its goal, what this actually means continues to change. Books which were once excluded are now being introduced. Another thing that has changed is bowdlerization. In the early days of Loeb, certain passages were censored.

[Anonymous No.13394818]

>>13394799
Thanks! Extremely informative post, and I am now going to look into bowdlerization.

Am I to assume that my recent Marcus Aurelius has bits censored possibly? The translation is from 1915 or so I believe.

[Anonymous No.13394824]

There are over 530 volumes of this collection.

[Anonymous No.13394828]

OP here, found the list by number:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/collection.php?cpk=1031

[Anonymous No.13394829]

>>13394828
>red and green aren't two separate lists
>I'm OK with that

Might make a nasty bookshelf if you respect the numbers, though.

[Anonymous No.13394831]

>>13394641
Unless you're reading the Greek/Latin or looking for specific works these things aren't worth the price in my opinion. If you're just really passionate about the Greeks then I guess there's no reason not to, but.. I feel like these are best for people that can read them in both languages.

[Anonymous No.13394832]

>>13394768
>Did Harvard students have to learn Greek and latin in the early 20th century or was that mostly intended for students who chose those topics?

In the 1800s, you needed to know Greek and Latin just to get in. Check out this old entrance exam:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf

These requirements would slacken considerably later, especially once enrolment exploded in the 1960s. I'm not too sure about the requirements from 1900 to 1950. We should probably remember that these were times of great discorded with two World Wars weighing heavy on this period.

[Anonymous No.13394848]

>>13394685
>starting at $5.00
Jesus Christ I wish I was in that bookshop

[Anonymous No.13394853]

>>13394832
Jesus Christ... In my own studies, you were forced to choose Greek or Latin for 2 years. I did 2 years of Latin and have absolutely nothing to show for it. I once knew the whole declensions by heart, though.

[Anonymous No.13394869]

I have to say, this thread is great. Maybe /lit/ greatly improved while other boards plummeted in quality, but man, I did not expect so much awesome stuff in such a short amount of time.

[Anonymous No.13394876]

>>13394818
>Am I to assume that my recent Marcus Aurelius has bits censored possibly? The translation is from 1915 or so I believe.

I'm not certain, but the history of bowdlerization is a strange and interesting one. The whole thing is mostly regrettable, but at the same time I think it helped make the classics more of a secret club which would have been fun. In some cases, 'dirty' passages were translated from Greek to Latin instead of English, or from Latin to Italian--allowing the discerning scholar to read the real thing.

[Anonymous No.13394882]

>>13394876
>mfw the author quotes some French and doesn't translate it
>I know French
>I'm in the secret club
>devilish.jpg

[Anonymous No.13394890]

>>13394832
God, I wish I had the opportunity to learn Greek and Latin in school before uni. Not even in a "le wrong generation" way, but the opportunity would have been nice.

[Anonymous No.13394906]

>>13394749
Certainly, but then just get the original along with the superior translation if necessary.

[Anonymous No.13394911]

Some of you might find this interesting or useful:

https://ryanfb.github.io/loebolus/

>Aiming to make all the public domain Loebs more easily downloadable by re-hosting the PDF's directly

[Anonymous No.13394916]

>>13394890
Why not start learning Latin now? I say Latin because I would imagine it's somewhat easier (but could be wrong). It's never too late!

[Anonymous No.13394917]

>>13394906
> just get the original

Getting a physical copy in the original language is kinda hard for most works unless you have access to a uni library near you.

[Anonymous No.13394934]

>>13394911
Goddam, just when I thought this thread couldn't get better, this guy shows up.

Is it usually this amazing on /lit/? I stopped coming several years ago because I had had enough of the ambient idiocy (I'm a real scholar), but things may have changed a whole lot since then. You tell me.

[Anonymous No.13394966]

>>13394934
No it isn't, leave before the guenonfags come again.

[Anonymous No.13394977]

>>13394672
>the original text also being included
the whole point of these is to read the original text

[Anonymous No.13394981]

>>13394911
>https://ryanfb.github.io/loebolus/
This is insane.

[Anonymous No.13394982]

Have some Loeb esoterica kindly friends.

>Some older volumes of the Loeb Classical Library had light-colored dust jackets and were bordered by small swastikas

[Anonymous No.13394992]

>>13394917
Fair enough, didn't realise it was that difficult to get just the original.

[Anonymous No.13394993]

>>13394981

Imbibe it

[Anonymous No.13394999]

>>13394982
lol, any idea what year this would be?

[Anonymous No.13395007]

>>13394993
Oh, I imbibe. But can one of you fucks become the next Orff before I die?

[Anonymous No.13395009]

>>13394999

The dates are all over the place, and the whole thing is a bit of a mystery as far as I know.

>I haven’t been able to ascertain when these particular volumes were first printed. My own collection of Loebs includes three of these oddball editions: a Horace printed in 1952, a Xenophon from 1956, and a Plato from 1962. I had never looked closely enough to notice the swastikas until I began research for this essay. There are at least 10 different volumes with this type of dust jacket advertised on used-book websites, with print dates as early as 1928 (a volume of Cicero) and continuing on through the 1930s and ’40s and into the ’50s.

[Anonymous No.13395011]

>>13394641
>Loab and other great book editions!
I'm a booklet so that may explain it, but I bought my first penguins classics and it is by far the best paperback I've ever had. Granted the others were wordsworths and vintages, but the product quality makes me never want to buy another one again.

[Anonymous No.13395018]

>>13395009
Would any of these made it onto the editions themselves? I'm a hardcover loser who sets aside the dustjackets.

[Anonymous No.13395033]

>>13394992
>Fair enough, didn't realise it was that difficult to get just the original.

It's not too tricky for the bigger names like Plato, but it gets very tricky for lesser figures. In many cases the books haven't been reprinted in over a hundred years making them all but impossible to even purchase unless you are tremendously wealthy. As for the big names, cost is still a concern. Take the pictured volume. I see that it is 68$ on Amazon.ca--more than twice the price of a Loeb volume.

[Anonymous No.13395037]

>>13394982
Pure magic happening in this thread.

[Anonymous No.13395046]

>>13395018

The actual books themselves might have been different in subtle ways, but I know nothing about it.

[Anonymous No.13395047]

>>13395011
Penguin is good shit. I'm OP and I have of ton of Penguins. I liked the Silver classics series. The black ones are classy too. Penguin did humanity a great service and as far as paperbacks go, I can't imagine anything better.

[Anonymous No.13395049]

>>13395033
Damn, any figures for the drop of people studying Latin/Greek?

[Anonymous No.13395052]

>Sun-bleached Loebs in the University of Sydney Classics department

AESTHETIC

[Anonymous No.13395057]

>>13395052
>the pink ones were written by pederasts

[Anonymous No.13395087]

>>13395049

As far as prices go, I couldn't say.
You'll find these older books listed all the time in bibliographies. The editions are almost always German making getting ahold of the things trickier. Even though they were made in Germany, the Greek texts had Latin intros which is neat.

[Anonymous No.13395093]

Thoughts on thicc Loebs?

[Anonymous No.13395098]

This is not OK by the way.

[Anonymous No.13395099]

>>13394934
>Is it usually this amazing on /lit/?
Absolutely not. We're lucky to get one good thread a day, and you're posting in it.

[Anonymous No.13395120]

This is what the French equivalent of the Loeb books look like.

[Anonymous No.13395121]

>>13395093
Damn, which one is it?

>thickasfuckus

[Anonymous No.13395126]

>>13395099
OK... I'll stick to the threads I open, then.

>>13395120
Is this PUF?

[Anonymous No.13395128]

>>13395121

This guy.

[Anonymous No.13395131]

>>13395128
Based as fuck.

[Anonymous No.13395141]

>>13395126

PUF?
Les Belles Lettres makes these.

[Anonymous No.13395152]

The I Tatti Renaissance Library is really nice too. I only have a few, but I like them a lot. It's the same idea with facing translations, but the physical quality is higher. The books are larger too which is both good and bad.

[Anonymous No.13395157]

>>13395093
Holy fuck the perspective on that pic. I thought I was looking at furniture at first

[Anonymous No.13395163]

Loeb esoterica #2

>A few of the books have pull-out pages

[Anonymous No.13395174]

>When the barbarians spot classical literature

[Anonymous No.13395187]

Some of the older volumes are worth owning BECAUSE of their dubious translation decisions. Case in point:

>In 1931 Loeb translation of Plutarch's 'Moralia' whenever Babbitt found a Greek dialect he translated it as Scots: so Agesilaus laments deaths in intra-Greek warfare: "Hech, sirs, for Greece, wha her ane sel' had killed sae mony men — as mony as micht pit doon a' the barbarians."

Based

[Anonymous No.13395222]

>>13395187

Reminds me of how they gave Texan accents to Okinawans in anime dubs back in the 2000s.

[Anonymous No.13395249]

>>13394716
Petronius

[Anonymous No.13395289]

Is there a German equivalent to Loeb and Les Lettres Belles?

[Anonymous No.13395453]

>loeb doesnt come in epub

big sad

[Anonymous No.13395523]

Reading reds and greens