Product Description

This edition features all three parts of Dante's great poem about the journey of the soul - "Inferno", "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso" - with explanatory notes on each canto. It includes Botticelli's illustrations of "The Divine Comedy", drawn in the 1480s.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82648 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05-25
• Original language: Italian
• Binding: Hardcover
• 798 pages

Customer Reviews

A plea for Dante's version
Any English version that doesn't bother to print the parallel Italian text is to my mind a waste of time (and money). Dante's Italian is not difficult to grapple with for the semi-literate English reader, given a crib and a prompt, and his language is poetry, intended surely to be declaimed, sung (his word, "canto").
Why can't Everyman use the format of their old, turn-of-the-century Temple Classics edition, in three "vest pocket"-sized volumes, a vademecum for a generation? This is the working edition praised by masters such as T.S. Eliot, where a literal prose translation (now of course dated) faces the better craftsman's text, with a useful critical apparatus of footnotes and glosses.
We always have Charles Singleton's scholarly edition for serious study.

Direct and Lively Translation
Dante was an exile in his own time. In his great work, he descends to the underworld where he encounters his poetic hero Virgil who guides him through the circles of Hell, up Mount Purgatory, and to the gates of Paradise, where his role is taken by Dante's vision of the Ideal, Beatrice. In Paradise Dante meets the spirits of the blessed.

This is a magnificent work, considered by some the joint centre of the Western Canon along with Shakespeare. It is peerless among works of literature, offering a lifetime of deep reading. Mandelbaum is to be congratulated on producing a direct, lively, musical translation which leads the eye and the mind ever onward. The presentation is first-rate, pleasing to the eye and hard-wearing, and comes with many of Boticelli's illustrations. I have tried and failed with other translations, but Mandelbaum's is eminently readable.

A very handsome edition
Dante is a must. The Divine Comedy is fascinating, incisive and reads like a real adventure.

About this edition:
* Allen Mandelbaum's translation is simply wonderful.
* Top marks for accessibility: The book reads very easily and is very well annotated (some 250 pages of notes)
* This edition is highly practical (it contains all three parts), durable and aesthetically pleasing.
* Contains 42 of Boticelli's 15th century illustrations
Simply great value for money

If you want to get acquainted with this masterpiece then this is the edition to go for!