Richmond Lattimore, among the most distinguished translators of the Greek classics, concluded, late in his life, one of his most ambitious projects - a complete translation of the New Testament.

Originally published in two volumes (The Four Gospels and the Revelation and Acts and Letters of the Apostles), this New Testament is itself a classic of another kind - the words of the Gospel and the Apostles presented for the modern reader in fresh English by a writer without pretensions as a biblical scholar, who was an authority on the Greek language in which these texts have come down to us.

When first published in 1979, The Four Gospels and the Revelation was hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "an achievement that places us more deeply in Lattimore's debt than any other in a long and diligent career.".

Lattimore's aim was to provide a simple, literal rendering in which the syntax and order of the Greek dictate the character of the English style. He let the words of the Apostles and early disciples speak for themselves with an accuracy and fidelity to the original language that is a gift to today's reader.