The Nature of Things

A new series of beautiful hardcover nonfiction classics, with covers designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith
World-changing ideas meet eye-catching design: the best titles of the extraordinarily successful Great Ideas series are now packaged in Coralie Bickford-Smith’s distinctive,award-winning covers. Whether on a well-curated shelf or in your back pocket, these timeless works of philosophical, political, and psychological thought are absolute musthaves for book collectors as well as design enthusiasts.
The Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. Lucretius demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear, as the soul is mortal and the world and everything in it is governed by the mechanical laws of nature rather than by gods. By believing this, men can live with peace of mind and happiness. His far-ranging lyrical exploration of the universe continues with an examination of sensation, sex, cosmology, meteorology, and geology, all of these subjects made more attractive by the poetry with which he illustrates them. Translated by award-winning American classicist and poet A. E. Stallings, this volume also features an introduction by the esteemed Oxford classics scholar Richard Jenkyns.