The New Lifetime Reading Plan

Omar Khayyam—Fitzgerald's translation is widely available; the Penguin edition has a good introduction by Dick Davis. The trans­lation by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs is less dramatic as a work of English poetry, but more faithful to the Persian original.

Further reading: There is surprisingly little; try Ali Dashtis In Search of Omar Khayyam, tr. L.P. Elwell-Sutton.

D ante Alighieri—Among many other translations there are good versions of The Divine Comedy by John Ciardi (Norton);

Thomas G. Bergin (Harlan Davidson); Dorothy Sayers (Penguin); Allen Mandelbaum (U. of Califуrnia Press); Robert Pinsky (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The translation by Charles S. Singleton (Princeton U. Press) inclines to the literal, but this has its value. Note also La Vita Nuova, tr. Barbara Reynolds (Penguin); On World Government (De Monarchia), tr. H. S. Schneider (Bobbs- Merrill); and the excellent Portable Dante (Viking).

Further reading: Francis Fergusson, Dante; Thomas G. Bergin, Dante; Jefferson Butler Fletcher, Dante; the essay on Dante in George Santayanas Three Philosophical Poets; the essay on Dante in T.S. Eliot's Selected Essays 1Q17-1Q32; Robin Kirkpatrick, Dante: The Divine Comedy. Good biography: P.J. Quinones, Dante Alighieri.

Luo kuan-chung—The best translation is by Moss Roberts, Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel (U. Califуrnia Press). The older translation by C.H. Brewitt-Taylor, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (reprint, Tuttle) is acceptable.

Further reading: C.T. Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel: A Criticai Introduction covers ali major works of Chinese fiction, as does the briefer work by Chinas foremost twentieth-century writer, Lu Hsьn, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, tr. by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang.

Geoffrey Chaucer—Complete Works, ed. W. W. Skeat (Oxford U. Press). Canterbury Tales, tr. Nevill Coghill (Penguin), an excellent translation; also tr. David Wright (Vintage); tr. R. M. Lumiansky (prose, Washington Sq. Press). Portable Chaucer, ed. Theodore Morrison (Viking). Troilus and Crisseyde, tr. Nevill Coghill (Penguin). A Choice of Chaucer s Verse, ed. Nevill Coghill (Merrimack).

Further reading: John Livingston Lowes, Geoffrey Chaucer; Marchette Chute, Geoffrey Chaucer of England; D.S. Brewer, Chaucer, 3d ed.; G.G. Coulton, Chaucer and His England; S.S. Hussey, Chaucer: An Introduction; Donald R. Howard, Chaucer.

The Thousand and One Nights—The two classic Victorian transla­tions are by Richard Burton (10 vols, 1885, and six supplementary vols., 1886-88), and by John Payne (9 vols, 1882-84, four supple­mentary vols., 1884-88). There are many reprints and abridge- ments of both; beware of censorship and of retellings for children.

Further reading: Robert Irvings The Arabian Nights: A Companion is an excellent guide to the stories, their historical con- text, and their translations. See also: Mia I. Gerhardt, The Art of Story-Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights, and Peter L. Caracciolo, The Arabian Nights in English Literature, a fascinating study of the influence of the tales on a wide range of English authors.

Niccolo Machiavelli—The Prince: many editions, including Airmont, Mentor, Oxford, Penguin, Everyman.

Further reading: The best biography is R. Ridolfi's Life of Niccolт Machiavelli. More recent: Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli.

Franзois Rabelais—A good translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel is by John M. Cohen (Penguin). See also Penguin's Portable Rabelais, ed. Samuel Putnam.

Further reading: The best one-volume life is the translation by Louis P.Roche of Jean Plattard's The Life of Franзois Rabelais, but this is hard to come by. Samuel Putnam's Rabelais: Man of the Renaissance is good, too. D.B. Wyndham Lewis's Doctor Rabelais, by a Catholic and a humorist, offers a sympathetic interpretation of both these aspects of Rabelais. Donald Frame's Franзois Rabelais: A Study is a good introductory book, and Mikhail Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World a penetrating one.