The Golden Ass

The Golden Ass is a unique, entertaining, and thoroughly readable Latin novel - the only work of fiction in Latin to have survived in its entirety. It tells the story of Lucius, whose curiosity and fascination for sex and magic result in his transformation into an ass. After suffering a series of trials and humiliations, he is ultimately transformed back into human shape by the kindness of the Goddess Isis. Blending romantic adventure, fable, and religious testament, The Golden Ass is one of the truly seminal books of European literature, of intrinsic interest as a novel in its own right, and one of the earliest examples of the picaresque. This new translation is at once faithful to the meaning of the Latin, whilst reproducing all the exuberant gaiety of the original. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey. The bewitched Lucius passes from owner to owner - encountering a desperate gang of robbers and being forced to perform lewd 'human' tricks on stage - until the Goddess Isis finally breaks the spell and Lucius is initiated into her cult. Apuleius' enchanting story has inspired generations of writers such as Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Keats with its dazzling combination of allegory, satire, bawdiness and sheer exuberance, and remains the most continuously and accessibly amusing book to have survived from Classical antiquity.

Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey. The bewitched Lucius passes from owner to owner - encountering a desperate gang of robbers and being forced to perform lewd 'human' tricks on stage - until the Goddess Isis finally breaks the spell and Lucius is initiated into her cult. Apuleius' enchanting story has inspired generations of writers such as Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Keats with its dazzling combination of allegory, satire, bawdiness and sheer exuberance, and remains the most continuously and accessibly amusing book to have survived from Classical antiquity.

The Golden Ass is a unique, entertaining, and thoroughly readable Latin novel - the only work of fiction in Latin to have survived in its entirety. It tells the story of Lucius, whose curiosity and fascination for sex and magic result in his transformation into an ass. After suffering a series of trials and humiliations, he is ultimately transformed back into human shape by the kindness of the Goddess Isis. Blending romantic adventure, fable, and religious testament, The Golden Ass is one of the truly seminal books of European literature, of intrinsic interest as a novel in its own right, and one of the earliest examples of the picaresque. This new translation is at once faithful to the meaning of the Latin, whilst reproducing all the exuberant gaiety of the original. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Acclaimed poet and translator Sarah Ruden brilliantly brings Apuleius's comic tale to life “A rollicking ride well worth the fare, . . . marvelously, sidesplittingly ridiculous. . . . It’s a story, not a homily, and Sarah Ruden has re-bestowed it with artful aplomb.”—Tracy Lee Simmons, National Review “A cause for celebration. . . . We owe Sarah Ruden a great debt of thanks for [this] English translation that is no less inventive, varied, and surprising than the original.”—G. W. Bowersock, New York Review of Books With accuracy, wit, and intelligence, this remarkable new translation of The Golden Ass breathes new life into Apuleius’s classic work. Sarah Ruden, a lyric poet as well as a highly respected translator, skillfully duplicates the verbal high jinks of Apuleius’s ever-popular novel. It tells the story of Lucius, a curious and silly young man who is turned into a donkey when he meddles with witchcraft. Doomed to wander from region to region and be mistreated by a series of deplorable owners, Lucius at last is restored to human form with the help of the goddess Isis. The Golden Ass , the first Latin novel to survive in its entirety, is related to the Second Sophistic, a movement of learned and inventive literature. In a translation that is both the most faithful and the most entertaining to date, Ruden reveals to modern readers the vivid, farcical ingenuity of Apuleius’s style.

Acclaimed poet and translator Sarah Ruden brilliantly brings Apuleius's comic tale to life “A rollicking ride well worth the fare, . . . marvelously, sidesplittingly ridiculous. . . . It’s a story, not a homily, and Sarah Ruden has re-bestowed it with artful aplomb.”—Tracy Lee Simmons, National Review “A cause for celebration. . . . We owe Sarah Ruden a great debt of thanks for [this] English translation that is no less inventive, varied, and surprising than the original.”—G. W. Bowersock, New York Review of Books With accuracy, wit, and intelligence, this remarkable new translation of The Golden Ass breathes new life into Apuleius’s classic work. Sarah Ruden, a lyric poet as well as a highly respected translator, skillfully duplicates the verbal high jinks of Apuleius’s ever-popular novel. It tells the story of Lucius, a curious and silly young man who is turned into a donkey when he meddles with witchcraft. Doomed to wander from region to region and be mistreated by a series of deplorable owners, Lucius at last is restored to human form with the help of the goddess Isis. The Golden Ass , the first Latin novel to survive in its entirety, is related to the Second Sophistic, a movement of learned and inventive literature. In a translation that is both the most faithful and the most entertaining to date, Ruden reveals to modern readers the vivid, farcical ingenuity of Apuleius’s style.

The story of The Golden Ass is that of Lucius Apuleius, a young man of good birth who encountered many strange adventures while disporting himself along the roads to Thessaly. Not the least of these occurred when Apuleius offended a priestess of the White Goddess, who turned him into an ass. The tale of how Apuleius dealt with this misfortune and eventually resumed human form is conveyed by Robert Graves in modern English that is infused with a bawdy wit and sense of adventure that is "itself a small masterpiece of twentieth-century prose" (Kenneth Rexroth, Saturday Review ).

The story of The Golden Ass is that of Lucius Apuleius, a young man of good birth who encountered many strange adventures while disporting himself along the roads to Thessaly. Not the least of these occurred when Apuleius offended a priestess of the White Goddess, who turned him into an ass. The tale of how Apuleius dealt with this misfortune and eventually resumed human form is conveyed by Robert Graves in modern English that is infused with a bawdy wit and sense of adventure that is "itself a small masterpiece of twentieth-century prose" (Kenneth Rexroth, Saturday Review ).