Ratings47
Average rating3.8
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Describing Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, Inferno depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonising torture, Dante encounters doomed souls including the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicide Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit. Led by leering demons, the poet must ultimately journey with Virgil to the deepest level of all. For it is only by encountering Satan, in the heart of Hell, that he can truly understand the tragedy of sin.
Featured Series
3 primary booksLa Divina Commedia is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 10 with contributions by Nicholas Kilmer, Dante Alighieri, and 2 others.
Featured Prompt
1,890 booksWhen you think back on every book you've ever read, what are some of your favorites? These can be from any time of your life – books that resonated with you as a kid, ones that shaped your personal...
Reviews with the most likes.
I wasn't in a place to enjoy the slow reading to appreciate the prose and references.
This book belongs in the circle for deceivers, because the first 15 cantos tricked me into thinking this would be amazing. Dante really drops the ball in the second half. Be better.
It will forever puzzle me that Cassius and Brutus are put in the innermost circle alongside Judas, seemingly elevating Caesar above the Christ.