The Dante Library
The Essential Dante
A better introduction to the Divine Comedy than just the Inferno
With introductions by Joe Carlson
The Essential Dante includes 34 cantos carefully selected to not leave students in hell. Get them through to Paradiso. If you must compromise, do it right!
Ready for the whole poem? The Divine Comedy, all 100 cantos in one volume, is $29.95.
Explore all of DanteThe Dante Library
See everything Dante
The poemThe Divine Comedy
Prose · Vol IThe Italian Works
Prose · Vol IIThe Latin Works
A selection · You are hereThe Essential Dante
Pre-orderThe InterlinearNearly everything Dante wrote, from Roman Roads.
If you must compromise, do it right
Many schools are simply unable to read the entire Comedy in their literature programs. Instead, they read only the Inferno. But in doing so they give the students a truncated and distorted perception of Dante’s project. Reading just the Inferno is akin to reading only the first two acts of Hamlet, or Crime and Punishment up until the point where Raskolnikov murders the pawn broker and her sister, or only The Fellowship of the Ring.
This volume, therefore, offers something of a compromise. If a school or co-op is simply unable to read all 100 cantos, but is able to read 34 (the number of cantos in Inferno), a better solution would be to read a selection from all three parts of the poem. That is what we offer here.
Dante’s whole legacy, in one book
- 01Twelve cantos from Inferno
- 02Twelve cantos from Purgatorio
- 03Ten cantos from Paradiso
- 04Summaries for all 100 cantos, filling out the narrative
- 05A selection of passages from all of Dante’s prose works
- 06Substantial introductions to all of the above
PlayIntroduction and Discussion on The Essential Dante
Why a selection from all three canticles is a better introduction than the Inferno alone.
Dr. Joe Carlson
Joe Carlson holds a BA in Liberal Arts and Culture from New Saint Andrews College, and an MA in Humanities and a PhD in Literature from the University of Dallas. He is a Senior Editor with Roman Roads Press and a Literature professor at New Saint Andrews College.
Explore everything Dante
The poem in one volume or three, a guide to every canto, the lectures, the Teacher’s Edition, an interlinear, audiobooks read by the translator, and all of Dante’s prose. The most complete Dante in English, in one place.