In Lucian and the Latins, Marsh describes how Renaissance authors rediscovered the comic writings of the second-century Greek satirist Lucian. He traces how Lucianic themes and structures made an essential contribution to European literature beginning with a survey of Latin translations and imitations, which gave new direction to European letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The Lucianic dialogues of the dead and dialogues of the gods were immensely popular, despite the religious backlash of the sixteenth century. The paradoxical encomium, represented by Lucian's The Fly and The Parasite, inspired so-called serious humanists such as Leonardo Bruni and Guarino of Verona. Lucian's True Story initiated the genre of the fantastic journey, which enjoyed considerable popularity during the Renaissance age of discovery. Humanist descendants of this work include Thomas More's Utopia and much of Rabelais's Pantagruel and Fourth Book and Fifth Book.

An excursus relates the later influence of Lucian's True Story in Voltaire, Poe, and Mann.