The Children's Plutarch: Moral Tales of the Greeks and Romans (Plutarch's Lives) Paperback – January 11, 2026

A retelling of Plutarch's Lives in simple language.This edition includes both Tales of the Greeks and Tales of the Romans together in a single volume.This edition includes the combined text of both the 1906 British edition and the 1910 American editions.Includes the Index for Moral Instruction organized similar to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.Illustrations in the Art Nouveau style by the famed children's illustrator Walter Crane. The gold standard for virtue instruction for nearly two millennia, Plutarch's Livesbelongs to a genre that doesn't quite exit today—the Life—a sort of biography that paints a portrait of the virtue and vices of its subject. Plutarch's Lives were especially influential on the American founding, being the most referenced ancient source in the Federalist Papers. Originally written as independent pairs (one Greek and one Roman), author F. J. Gould wisely arranges his retellings of the Lives in chronological order, which to this day is still considered the best order for learning. His unique contribution is his Index for Moral Instruction, arranged similarly to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, for assisting parents in deftly navigating the text.Why choose the Caparison edition?Two volumes in one: The original 1906 edition included both sets of tales together in one volume, but the later 1910 edition divided them into separate books. This edition reunites the Greek and Roman tales.The combined text of both the 1906 and 1910 editions. The later 1910 edition made some improvements over the original 1906 edition, but some portions from the 1906 text were removed, such as the religious reference to Dante's Inferno. This edition both retains the 1910 improvements and restores the excised 1906 text.The Index for Moral Instructionis a unique feature among Plutarch books, and this edition includes a rebuilt index for the first time since the 1910 editions.Edited by classicists: Gould made a number of translation choices that were more relatable in his time that are obsolete today, such as translating "Zeus" as "Jupiter", "bronze" as "brass", and "Cicero" as "vetch" instead of "chickpea". The text of this edition is corrected to use the proper terminology.The original publisher made a very incomplete attempt at adapting the original 1906 British text for the later 1910 American editions. We have continued this work by lightly editing the text to smooth over the archaic Britishisms while retaining the high register, a challenging vocabulary, and punctuating for informing how the text should be read aloud (a practice which has unfortunately fallen out of use in modern books).Uncensored and culturally restored: There was a movement from the 19th through the early 20th centuries to adapt classical literature for children. Over the years as the texts were revised, they were often censored or culturally vandalized in various ways. Caparison Books is committed to restoring these texts without omissions or distortions. Read more