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‘All life is written in Dante’s burning pages, and Nichols has done him proud.’ The Observer
‘Bravo for this new version of Dante … Bravo, Professor Nichols!’ The Church Times
‘For sheer liveliness, combined with accuracy and closeness to the text, it will be hard to rival.’ A.N. Wilson
Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise are presented here in a new verse translation by acclaimed poet and prize-winning translator J.G. Nichols, together with the original text facing, extensive notes, illustrations by Gustave Doré and a critical apparatus focusing on the author’s life and works. The collection includes Dante’s Rime and Vita Nuova and Boccaccio’s biography of the great Italian Bard.
Dante’s dramatic journey through the circles of hell in search of redemption – and his encounter with devils, monsters and the souls of some of the greatest sinners who ever walked on earth – is one of the cornerstones of Western literature, the summit of medieval thinking and arguably the highest poetic achievement of all time.
Describing Dante’s second stage in his arduous journey to redemption, Purgatory features a host of unforgettable scenes and characters, and arguably some of the best poetry to be found in the Divine Comedy. The gloom, torments and evils of Hell have been left behind, but Dante’s ascent of Mount Purgatory towards Paradise remains fraught with obstacles, not least the burden of his own mortality and his human passions.
In the third and final part of The Divine Comedy, Dante recounts his journey through heaven, after the travails and torments of Hell and the arduous ascent of Mount Purgatory, creating a cosmology of the highest realm of creation which is astonishing in its complexity. In Dante’s imagining, Paradise is formed out of concentric spheres surrounding the Earth, beginning with the Moon and ending with the Empyrean. Dante must traverse these ethereal regions guided by his beloved Beatrice, as a means of attaining wisdom, revelation and beatitude.
Translated by J.G. Nichols and Anthony Mortimer, Dante’s Rime offer a fascinating glimpse into the imagination of arguably the greatest writer of all time.
Translated by Anthony Mortimer, The Vita Nuova remains a central document in European culture’s examination of love and the self.
Translated by Philip Whicksteed, Life of Dante brings together the earliest accounts of Dante available, putting the celebratory essay of literary genius Giovanni Boccaccio together with the historical analysis of leading humanist Leonardo Bruni.
