An example of clarity and good sense for any student approaching the second half of the Aeneid in whole or in part

The outstanding and long-lived 'red Macmillan' series of editions survived on the basis of T.E. Page's perceptive and exemplary editions of Virgil, dating from the closing decade of the nineteenth century. In the early 1970s replacement editions were prepared by the outstanding Virgilian scholar R.D. Williams, to take account of more modern approaches to Virgil and of the needs of new generations of upper school and university students. The scale of the edition required brevity and immediate relevance to the text (rather than the fuller exposition of his commentaries for OUP) but Williams achieved his aim of being 'concise rather than omissive' and his notes remain an example of clarity and good sense for any student approaching the second half of the Aeneid in whole or in part.