Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles: Latin Text with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary

The book is well put together, for the intermediate student who is looking for interesting stories of Roman mythology.First is Perseus, and his adventures. Then next is Hercules, and so on. The paragraphs are easy to digest, with Latin on one side (left) and vocabulary and grammatical notes on the right. I highly recommend this for anyone wishing to improve on their Latin skills, who enjoy reading the old myths in the Classical Latin format. Multas Gratias! Mihi Valde Placet!

A wonderful volume. This is a revised version of a title in the public domain, and the comments made here apply only to this version and people should make sure they are buying the right version because there are others available. In my experience as a Latin teacher this book really reaches students. The original was quite respectable to start with; it is a collection of graded Latin stories which become gradually more challenging and they are about Greek mythology. The stories are well written in good grammatical Latin and their subjects are what students love: stories of gods, goddesses, heroes and monsters. Mr. Steadman has greatly improved a strong original by laying out the text clearly on the page with a large font, providing macrons and supplying vocabulary and helpful notes next to the text for easy access by the students. The most common words are in the back. This is a perfect choice for taking advanced beginner students (sometime in the second high-school year) to the next level. The passages in the second half of the text seem to feature every conceivable grammatical construction with some elaborate sentences so using this book for occasionally "mixing it up" with more advanced students is valid too. It is a good example of modern Latin composition which might inspire students to make attempts of their own. Mythology to me is the perfect incentive for students to push through and embrace all Latin has to offer and this book fully realizes a promising concept to become a truly useful pedagogic tool.

This is a great first reader and has a lot of helpful notes and vocabulary. The stories increase in difficulty as you move through the text.

This is a nice ancillary supplement to your curriculum. It is especially geared toward second year and above. My Latin 1 classes have difficulty with the passages due to the advanced grammar in the Mythological passages.

Great book

Exactly what I was looking for. I needed a backup text to an online copy of this book for my students to use when technology was not available or working. When I stumbled upon this text, I was very excited. It contains readable, large font text perfect for student use, a running vocabulary which I could not be more happy with, and extensive notes on the translation.This would be an excellent supplementary text for any first-year Latin classroom.

Fabulae Faciles IN THIS EDITION ( and instructors, be sure to order this addition) is perfect for the second semester of first-year students. The stories provide nice variety, superior to the selections in other readers. But it is the glossary and the footnotes that make this useful for the first year. User-friendly. I highly recommend after scouring the market for suitable readers that worked in the classroom. Now be warned. It tooks me three tries of FABULAE FACILES before I found this edition. Other incarnations are not as user friendly.

This book is amazing for beginningish Latin students. I still frequently come back to it to keep myself fresh on a wide variety of grammatical issues when I don't have time for more serious reading. The stories are fun and progress at a very good pace for beginners in terms of increasing complexity. The notes are helpful, but they don't hold your hand. My one complaint is that the editing is just terrible. There are typos, both major and minor, throughout the book. My biggest complaint with regard to typos is a lack of consistency in the positions of macrons. Many words have/don't have them in the passage, then the reverse is true in the notes or vocabulary. This might be a turn-off for someone at the very beginning of their studies.

This is ideal if you know all your grammar, have a basic vocabulary but find original Latin texts very challenging. This is much more readable but still uses classical constructions so is good preparation for original prose. I love it because it’s a thin volume but you don’t need a dictionary as this is provided page by page, so you can take it anywhere.

First published in 1884, these are adaptations of several Greek myths (Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Ulysses) in 100 paragraphs. The introduction of this modern edition indicates that there is a progressive element to the sections in terms of grammar elements, though there is no indicator with the sections themselves as to what the reader is expected to know. The left hand pages are text, and the right hand side vocabulary at the top and grammar points at the bottom - these are not divided as the left hand side may contain two or parts of three sections.At the beginning there is a core vocabulary of words occurring at least 15 times in the book ordered by page number of first occurrence, and at the back the same in alphabetical order and summary of conjugation tables. There are more interesting intermediate readers out there, but at the price you can't really fault this one too much.

I bought this for my 14 year old son whom I am teaching Latin to at home. So far he hasn't done any of it as he is on Latin Stories, another book I purchased and found incredibly useful. This one is great fun though (I've been reading through it myself, essential for knowing when he is ready for it as it is a little harder than the first level of stories in Latin Stories) and I am really enjoying it. The vocabulary lists on the facing pages are invaluable as they obviate the need to keep going to the vocabulary in the back, which is irritating in a good story, and the grammar notes at the foot are fascinating. A very good buy I would advise anyone to buy if they are studying alone or in school.

Splendid edition. Hugely ueful facing vocabulary and notes and a useful grammar synopsis of forms at the end. Now do it in Kindle! Would be readers might like to know that there are several audio versions of the Perseus and Heracles sections available on the web (Librivox for example).

Makes it a pleasure to learn Latin. I love it.