This first trade paperback edition of the critically acclaimed 1986 hardcover Classical Illusions has been expanded with the addition of 22 new short stories, "Siren Songs." A master satirist, Kessler writes with devastating precision on the ironies of contemporary life, transposing ancient stereoptypes into modern settings, and holding modern mores up to the test of time.

The Penn Greek Drama Series presents original literary translations of the entire corpus of classical Greek drama: tragedies, comedies, and satyr plays. It is the only contemporary series of all the surviving work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander. This volume presents fresh versions of Sophocles's Theban plays, which include the most famous of the ancient Greek tragedies, King Oedipus. Sophocles reveals the history of Oedipus from the fulfillment of the oracle that foretold he would kill his father, outwit the Sphinx, marry his mother, and have a family, through his banishment and tortured death as a blind man and the attempted redemption of the family by his daughter, Antigone. Translations are by Jascha Kessler (King Oedipus), George Garrett (Oedipus at Colonus), and Kelly Cherry (Antigone).