This highly accessible, user-friendly work provides a fresh and illuminating introduction to the most important aspects of Latin prose and poetry. Readers are constantly encouraged to think for themselves about how and why we study the texts in question. They are stimulated and inspired to do their own further reading through engagement with a wide selection of translated extracts, and with a useful exploration of the different ways in which they can be approached. Central throughout is the theme of the fundamental connections between Latin literature and issues of elite Roman culture.The versatile structure of the book makes it suitable both for individual and class use.