Epigram (2010) — Niall Livingstone & Gideon Nisbet

Cambridge University Press | ISBN: 09780521145701 | Condition: Good | Sold by Crappy Old Books™

Here it is: a gloriously long blurb about short poems. Because nothing says “epigram” quite like a thumping great paragraph extolling the art of keeping it brief.

Livingstone and Nisbet—two scholars with sharper quills than your average museum gift shop pencil—escort you through the ancient world’s most compact literary cocktail: the epigram. Think of it as the original tweet, only with meter, marble, and fewer pictures of cats. From inscriptions that once clung to statues and tombs to sly little verses that winked across symposium tables, this book maps how tiny poems managed to be tender, tart, and terrifyingly clever, often all at once. Cambridge University Press provides the academic steel; the authors bring the mischief.

Inside you’ll find:

• Bite-sized brilliance: poems so short you’ll “just read one more” and then realize it’s Tuesday.

• Context with a grin: how epigrams moved from stone to scroll to salon, collecting gossip, grief, and glorious shade en route.

• Form that bites back: what makes a good epigram snap, and why its sting still feels fresh two millennia later.

• Scholarly sparkle: lucid explanations that never condescend, notes that don’t behave like footnote quicksand, and examples that actually earn their place.

And about that Condition: Good from Crappy Old Books™: the cover has done its duty, the pages are intact, and the text remains impressively epigrammatic. It’s the sort of copy that looks right at home on a desk strewn with notebooks and intentions. Expect gentle signs of life, not library crimes. In other words, well-loved enough to be approachable, tidy enough to be presentable—like a toga with only the lightest hint of symposium.

Why you’ll love it (even if you’re allergic to scansion):

• It’s the perfect gateway to classical poetry without the ritual sacrifice of your weekend.

• It makes you dangerously quotable. After a chapter or two, your emails acquire a suspiciously crisp aftertaste.

• It’s a reminder that culture has always adored the clever aside—the concise line that lands harder than a page of prose.

Take it from Crappy Old Books™, whose name is self-deprecating, not descriptive: this is the kind of “reference” you’ll pretend to shelve and then constantly have open, muttering “just one more” like a responsible adult with a very irresponsible sweet tooth.

In the spirit of the genre, an attempt:

Brief verse, long life—
Marble chips; minds sharpen.
This book brings both.

If you’ve ever wished your reading were smarter, snappier, and pocket-sized, Epigram is your match. Come for the classics cred; stay for the sly smile you’ll wear the next time someone asks for “something short.”

Has some water damage to first 2-6 pages, but nothing serious.

Keep browsing: See more Ancient Classics books Other books by Niall Livingstone and Gideon Nisbet