Daphnis and Chloe (Penguin Classics)

A European best-seller for hundreds of years, this extraordinary classic has strongly influenced literature, art and music. While the subject of some disapproval, viewed as obscene by Mrs. Browning, Daphnis and Chloe has remained a rich inspirational source for artists from Henry Fielding to Corot and Ravel, an early Greek fictional masterpiece. While Longus filled the book with conventional elements such as pirates, dreams and supernatural interventions, he skillfully added another dimension, turning it into a genuine love story, beautiful, funny, clever, perceptive and ironic in its view of human sexual experience.