This is the second volume of R. Deryck Williams' classic edition of the Aeneid, covering books VII and XII. It includes the Latin text, with English introduction, an extensive commentary and notes by this renowned Virgilian scholar. Designed for upper school and university students, the commentary interprets the poetic methods and intentions of the Aeneid, and explains not only what Virgil says, but how he says it and why he says it in the particular way which he chooses.

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 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.