Dante's Inferno »

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet, educator, and linguist, wrote many long narrative poems, including The Song of Hiawatha, Evangeline, and The Courtship of Miles Standish.

Matthew Pearl is the author of the novel The Dante Club, published by Random House, and is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School. In 1998 he won the prestigious Dante Prize from the Dante Society of America for his scholarly work. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Lino Pertile is a professor of Romance languages and literature at Harvard University. He specializes in Dante and the Latin Middle Ages.

In the Inferno, the first of the three-part Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri is wandering through a dark wood on the evening of Good Friday in the year 1300. Losing his way and suddenly fearful, he looks up to see the sun shining on a mountain above. He tries to reach it, but is thwarted by three beasts. The Roman poet Virgil appears, sent to guide him back to the path and on to the top of the mountain. They must go through Hell, says Virgil, but will eventually reach Heaven, where Dante's beloved Beatrice awaits. Thus begins this poetic tale whose vivid images of the circles of hell, its themes of human torment and triumph, and the search for spiritual sustenance and transcendent love have made it a classic of Western literature. This audio version features several narrators — including Corin Redgrave and Laurie Anderson — and a moody score by the ambient musician Scanner (Robin Rimbaud).

The Nation - William Dean Howells

Here at last that much suffering reader will find Dante's greatness manifest, and not his greatness only, but his grace, his simplicity, and his affection... Opening the book we stand face to face with the poet, and when his voice ceases we may well marvel if he has not sung to us in his own Tuscan.