The Golden Ass

The Golden Ass is a unique, entertaining, and thoroughly readable Latin novel - the only work of fiction in Latin to have survived in its entirety.

It tells the story of Lucius, whose curiosity and fascination for sex and magic result in his transformation into an ass. After suffering a series of trials and humiliations, he is ultimately transformed back into human shape by the kindness of the Goddess Isis.

Blending romantic adventure, fable, and religious testament, The Golden Ass is one of the truly seminal books of European literature, of intrinsic interest as a novel in its own right, and one of the earliest examples of the picaresque. This new translation is at once faithful to the meaning of the Latin, whilst reproducing all the exuberant gaiety of the original.