The Divine Comedy (Volume 5) (Knickerbocker Classics, 5) Hardcover – September 21, 2015

I had been searching for a copy of Dante's Divine Comedy (in english) for years but only ever found it Italian. It came in a beautiful presentation, I was super excited when I first opened the box and removed the cover. Highly recommend

The illustrations are incredible. In.cred.ible. Seriously.The paper weight and texture is also great.

The Knickerbocker Classics version of The Divine Comedy is the translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow was the first U.S. translation of The Divine Comedy, and because of that it is a very accessible translation. It's not the best translation I have read in terms of beauty, but it is an easier read than others which I have attempted. The best part of this edition is the images of Gustave Doré. The illustrations of Doré are easily recognized and you will also find them in the works of John Milton. Like all books in the Knickerbocker Classics line, the pages are thinner than my liking, and that creates both word and image bleed-through. This is not a textbook edition, but more a bookshelf edition. Because of that, it is missing footnotes both for translation and literary references. Those are helpful and I'd argue essential for anyone reading through Dante the first time. There is a brief introduction on Dante, a section on "The Life and Times of Dante Alighieri," and some keys to studying the text at the end. However, for a thorough study, you'll want a more scholarly translation and perhaps a textual guide or commentary on it. Overall, this is a good book for an affordable price and you could walk away from it with a basic grasp and appreciation of The Divine Comedy. I recommend it for someone who has never read this great work or someone looking to re-introduce themselves to this work.

There seem to be many jumbled reviews of many different editions and translations of the Divine Comedy. This is in reference to the Knickerbocker cloth bound edition — the Longfellow translation with Doré's illustrations included.I've been looking for a high quality edition of the Divine Comedy for a number of months now. This is the second one I've found not entirely satisfactory (I first picked up a leather-bound edition at a brick & mortar bookstore, and very soon after returned it, for the same reason I am about to describe here). The book's construction is indeed beautiful, but the major shortcoming is with respect to the printing of Gustave Doré's engravings, which happen to be a large part of why I was interested in this volume. The reproduction of the engravings is of low quality, and in many of them the exquisite detail is not even clearly visible. My guess is the pictures were printed from computer-prepared facsimiles, and as such they exhibit the jaggy "copy-of-a-copy" artifacting, along with an unsightly moiré effect in many of the backgrounds.Again, the exterior of the book is truly gorgeous, but it's what's inside that counts. The poor quality of these illustrations cost this overall rating of mine two stars. I would prefer a paperback edition with top quality illustrations. I would even resort to two volumes, the text in one and the engravings in another, if that was the way to ensure I could have Doré's artwork in the vivid, glorious detail it really deserves.

Still reading it

The divine comedy by Dante deserves a far better quality of reproduction than you will find here. The classic pictures are poorly replicated, badly smudged, and black and white. There is only the English translation, without the corresponding original Italian. The whole experience of this work is rendered boring and a bit pitiful. Do not waste your money on this edition. Find a better edition, with both languages presented in the full text, and quality reproductions of the fascinating artwork that accompanies this epic classic.

Very nice presentation of a classic