Oxford Reds: Classic Commentaries on Latin Classics

The series of classic commentaries on the most important Latin texts, published by Oxford University Press between 1933 and 1976, remain extremely influential textbooks wherever Classics is taught to English speakers: in verse, R.G. Austin on four books of Virgil’s Aeneid and C.J. Fordyce on Catullus; in prose, Austin on Cicero’s Pro Caelio, R.G. Nisbet on Cicero’s De Domo and R.G.M. Nisbet on Cicero’s In Pisonem. The maroon boards used for these books gave them the impact of a ‘series’, and they provided a model for editions of Latin authors in the post-war expanding UK university system. Here John Henderson uncovers the individual and often surprising stories behind these publications, and brings out the personalities and negotiations that shaped them.