Ten years ago, at the age of 82, David Ferry (b. 1924) began translating Virgil's epic, in between working on his other poems and translations. This new rendering, which is likely to supplant the current standard editions of the poem, recreates in immediate, forward moving, and rhythmic contemporary American English that "sound-and-sense witchery, at once stately and debauched, of Virgil's Latin" (as noted by one of the Press's readers). It offers a new way into this timeless work for poetry lovers of all levels of knowledge and experience, and will be, without a doubt, the crowning achievement for the National Book Award-winning Ferry. The publication of a new Virgil for a new generation of readers will be an extraordinary event for American letters.

Publius Vergilius Maro, called Virgil in English, was a Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three poems central to Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid. Even in Virgil's lifetime he was considered one of Rome's greatest poets. According to tradition, Virgil died in the harbor at Brundisium on September 21, 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors to disregard Virgil's wish that the manuscript of the Aeneid be burned, instead ordering it published with few editorial changes.