John Conington's three-volume edition of The Works of Virgil, begun in 1852, has long been unavailable except in rare second-hand sets. The whole work is now being reissued in six affordable paperbacks, with new introductions setting the commentary in its context. Well into the twentieth century Conington's Virgil remained the sine qua non for school and undergraduate students and their teachers; Conington's commentary is remarkably close and uncompromising in its engagement with the detail of Virgil's Latin, as well as its literary sensitivity; it still has much to offer the modern reader....

First published between 1858 and 1871, John Conington's lucid exposition of the complete works of Virgil continues to set the standard for commentary on the Virgilian corpus. After decades out of print, this three-volume edition is once again available to readers, allowing Conington's subtle investigations of language, context, and intellectual background to find a fresh audience. Volume 2 (1863) features the first six books of the Aeneid. Introductory essays and detailed, informative notes situate the work within the larger field of Greek and Latin epic poetry. Still a major scholarly...