In the English-speaking world most readers come to Plutarch through the Penguin translations, and this companion aims to give help to readers of this subtle and complex writer. The introduction gives brief details of Plutarch's life and works, his methods and aims as a biographer, and the character of these particular three Lives. The commentary, in continuous prose, gives citations from the Penguin translation in bold type. The book also contains family trees, maps, a chronological table, a glossary of Roman political terms, and a select vocabulary.

Lysias was one of the leading exponents of the art of speech-writing in the late fifth- and early fourth-century Athens. These five examples of his work cover a range of cases and offer an insight into Athenian society. Their relatively simple language and style make them useful texts for the inexperienced reader of Greek, as well as the more advanced student.

While serving as an introduction to ecumenical liberal Protestantism and the social gospel over the course of the twentieth-century this book also highlights certain totalitarian as well as more fundamental conservative tendencies within those movements.