杨宪益的自传是以英文写成的，《漏船载酒忆当年》是其中文译本。自传的意大利文译本的书名为“从富家少爷到党员同志”，这从一个侧面粗线条地概括了它的内容。 杨宪益前半生的漫游与学习经历，显露一位浊世佳公子喜好浪漫与冒险的情怀，读起来像一部流浪汉小说或传奇；此后个人命运随时代洪流浮沉簸荡，又像一部政治宣言书。别具会心的读者，更不妨将它看做一册人生的读本：当生活的歧路纷然变乱于前，当世间的苦难不待招邀而至，人又当如何选择，如何持守。

《奥德修纪》是古希腊英雄史诗代表作，约形成于公元前九、十世纪，相传为荷马所作。史诗以古希腊英雄人物奥德修为主人公，讲述了他在伊利昂城攻下之后在海上艰苦飘流十年返回故乡，以及他回乡后如何复仇的故事。作为古代西方文化中最著名的叙事长诗之一，《奥德修纪》在文学、艺术上散发着永恒的魅力，并且在历史、地理或民俗学等方面都有相当大的价值。

收有埃斯库罗斯的悲剧《被缚的普罗米修斯》，索福克勒斯的悲剧《奥狄浦斯王》，欧里庇得斯的悲剧《美狄亚》，阿里斯托芬的喜剧《鸟》，米南德的喜剧《古怪人》。

It all began with a dream. A young woman saw a white tiger leap into her lap. It was both auspicious and unlucky—her son, the fortune-teller said, would grow up with no brothers, and his father's health would be endangered by his birth. That son, however, would have a distinguished career, after going through many misfortunes and dangers. The dream was prophetic. The child was his mother's only male child and his father died of illness when the boy was only five. He grew up during the wartime and period of political turmoil in China, passing through many troubles, and he has had a very distinguished career. He is Yang Xianyi, renowned scholar, translator and interpreter of Chinese and Western literature. This delightful memoir of Yang Xianyi gives a candid and entertaining account of himself as a lighthearted and mischievous young man who immersed himself in the learning of European culture, ancient and modern, when he studied at Oxford in the 1930s. But it is also the illuminating self-portrait of a deeply patriotic intellectual living in a China under the throes of change, giving rare insight into the survival of a courageous, witty and principled individual during the harsh century of Chinese liberation.