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Books on Oedipus the King
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Books about the play and its world, grouped by kind. Each entry says what the book is and who it is written for. Translations are compared in more detail on Choosing a Translation.
Translations for Reading · Student and Scholarly Editions · Criticism and Companions · Myth, Religion and the Theater · Adaptations and Afterlives · Sophocles’ Other Plays
Translations for Reading
English translations of the play, alone or with the other Theban plays, in prose and verse.
The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus — trans. Robert Fagles (1984)
- For: General readers
- Form: Verse translation with introduction, notes and glossary
A verse translation of the three Theban plays with an introduction by Bernard Knox and notes on each play. It is a standard general-reader text and is often assigned in university courses.
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The Oedipus Cycle: A New Translation — trans. Robert Bagg (2012)
- For: General readers
- Form: Verse translation of the three Theban plays
Robert Bagg’s verse translations of Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Kolonos and Antigone in one volume. Suited to readers who want a recent verse version of all three Theban plays.
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Sophocles I: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus — trans. David Grene (Oedipus the King); Elizabeth Wyckoff (Antigone); Robert Fitzgerald (Oedipus at Colonus) (1991)
- For: Students
- Form: Verse translations with introductions
A volume in the University of Chicago Complete Greek Tragedies series, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. It collects the three Theban plays in separate verse translations by different translators. A third edition (2013), edited by Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most, revises the translations and adds new introductions and notes.
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Oedipus the King: A Companion Reader — trans. R. C. Jebb (1904)
- For: General readers
- Form: Prose translation with Jebb’s Preface, Introduction and scene notes, and this site’s reference pages; his complete commentary as a separate PDF
Jebb’s prose translation (1904), now in the public domain, is the text of this site’s own edition, and the whole edition is available as a free PDF. It prints the play scene by scene with the Greek line numbers, Jebb’s Preface and Introduction from his 1893 edition, and his introductions to the scenes and choral songs, along with this site’s reference pages on the story, the characters, the house of Laius, the Theban myths, the Athenian theater and the play’s later history. Jebb’s complete line-by-line commentary on the Greek text is a second free PDF. It is suited to readers who want a free, faithful text with notes and don’t mind older English.
Download free PDF →Jebb’s commentary (PDF) →
Antigone; Oedipus the King; Electra — trans. H. D. F. Kitto (2008)
- For: General readers
- Form: Verse translation with introduction by Edith Hall and notes
H. D. F. Kitto’s verse translation of three plays, edited with an introduction and explanatory notes by Edith Hall. The introduction addresses the plays’ performance contexts and their later reception.
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Sophocles: Theban Plays — trans. Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff (2003)
- For: Students
- Form: Verse translation with introduction and notes, prepared for performance as well as reading
Verse translations of Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone by a theater director and a philosopher. The volume includes an introduction and notes and is suited to classroom use and to readers interested in staging.
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The Theban Plays: Antigone, King Oidipous and Oidipous at Colonus — trans. Ruby Blondell (2002)
- For: Students
- Form: Verse translation with introduction and notes
A translation of Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone in the Focus Classical Library series. It is designed for classroom use and includes an introduction and notes.
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Sophocles I: Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus — trans. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (1994)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Greek text with facing prose translation and brief notes
The Loeb Classical Library volume containing Oedipus Tyrannus with the Greek on facing pages. The English is a prose translation that follows the Greek closely, which suits readers comparing the two languages.
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Oedipus Tyrannus: A New Translation, Backgrounds, Criticism — trans. Luci Berkowitz and Theodore F. Brunner (1970)
- For: Students
- Form: Verse translation with backgrounds and a selection of critical essays
A verse translation of the play in the Norton Critical Editions format, accompanied by supporting materials and critical essays. It is suited to undergraduate study of the play and its interpretation.
Buy on Amazon →Student and Scholarly Editions
The Greek text with commentary, for readers working with the original.
Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (2006)
- For: Students
- Form: Greek text with introduction and commentary, edited by R. D. Dawe
A Greek edition of the play with an introduction and a commentary on language and text, edited by R. D. Dawe. It is aimed at students and teachers reading the play in Greek.
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, Part I: The Oedipus Tyrannus
- For: Scholars
- Form: Greek text with English prose translation, critical notes and commentary, edited by Richard C. Jebb
A late nineteenth-century edition by Richard Jebb with the Greek text, a facing English translation and an extensive commentary. Its commentary remains a frequently cited reference for the play.
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Sophoclis Fabulae (1990)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Greek text with critical apparatus, edited by H. Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson
The Oxford Classical Texts edition of the seven surviving plays, giving the Greek text and a critical apparatus. It contains no commentary and is used by readers who work from the manuscript tradition.
Buy on Amazon →Criticism and Companions
Books about the play and about Greek tragedy.
Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles’ Tragic Hero and His Time (1957)
- For: Students
- Form: Monograph
A study of Oedipus the King in relation to Athenian intellectual and political life of the fifth century BCE. It reads the play’s protagonist against contemporary ideas about knowledge, inquiry and leadership.
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Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece — trans. Janet Lloyd (1988)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Collection of essays in translation
Essays by two French classicists on the social, legal and religious setting of Greek tragedy. They include Vernant’s essay on ambiguity and reversal in Oedipus Rex.
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Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge (2001)
- For: Students
- Form: Monograph (second edition)
A book-length introduction to the play by Charles Segal, covering its structure, language, religious themes and place in Athenian culture. The second edition revises the volume first published in the Twayne series.
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Reading Greek Tragedy (1986)
- For: Students
- Form: Monograph
A study of Greek tragedy’s language, its ritual setting and its relation to the Athenian city and festival. It treats tragedy as a civic and discursive form rather than a set of isolated plays.
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Shame and Necessity (1993)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Monograph (Sather Classical Lectures)
A philosophical study of Greek ideas of responsibility, shame, agency and necessity, drawing on Homer and the tragedians. It bears on questions of guilt and action raised by the Theban plays.
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The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (1997)
- For: Students
- Form: Collection of essays by multiple contributors
Essays by several scholars on the history, performance, themes and reception of Greek tragedy. It is a general reference for readers placing Oedipus the King among the surviving tragedies.
Buy on Amazon →Myth, Religion and the Theater
The Theban myths, Greek religion and oracles, and the Athenian theater and its festival.
Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (1993)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Reference survey of sources, two volumes
A survey of the literary and artistic evidence for Greek myths down to the fifth century BCE. It includes the Theban material on Laius, Oedipus and their descendants and is used as a reference for variants of the story.
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Greek Religion — trans. John Raffan (1985)
- For: Students
- Form: Survey with notes and bibliography
A survey of ancient Greek religion covering cult, sacrifice, festivals, gods and divination. It provides the religious background to the play’s oracles, prayers and pollution.
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Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (1983)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Monograph
A study of Greek beliefs about ritual pollution and purification, including pollution arising from bloodshed and from violations of kinship. It is a standard scholarly treatment of the concepts behind the plague and the search for the killer in the play.
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The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and Operations (1978)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Monograph with catalogue of oracular responses
A study of the oracle at Delphi that catalogues recorded responses and classifies them as historical, quasi-historical or legendary. It is used for the institutional and literary background to oracles in Greek tragedy.
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Greek Tragic Theatre (1992)
- For: Students
- Form: Introductory study
An introduction to the physical theater, festival setting, performers and staging conventions of Athenian tragedy. It suits readers interested in how plays such as Oedipus the King were first produced.
Buy on Amazon →Adaptations and Afterlives
Later versions of the story and works shaped by it, from Seneca to the modern stage and screen.
The Interpretation of Dreams — trans. Joyce Crick (1999)
- For: General readers
- Form: Translation with introduction and notes by Ritchie Robertson
Freud’s 1899 work, in which he discusses Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and connects it to what he later termed the Oedipus complex. It is the source of the play’s place in the history of psychoanalysis.
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Oedipus: The Ancient Legend and Its Later Analogues (1985)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Monograph
A study of the Oedipus legend as it appears in ancient sources and of comparable tales in later traditions. It treats Sophocles’ play as one version within a wider body of narrative.
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Seneca’s Oedipus — trans. Ted Hughes (adaptation) (1969)
- For: General readers
- Form: Verse adaptation for the stage
Ted Hughes’s adaptation of the Roman tragedy Oedipus by Seneca, which retells the Sophoclean story in a later Latin version. It was written for a 1968 National Theatre production.
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The Gods Are Not to Blame (1971)
- For: General readers
- Form: Play
A Nigerian play that adapts the Oedipus story to a Yoruba setting. It is frequently studied as an example of the play’s adaptation in postcolonial African theater.
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Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre 1660–1914 (2005)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Monograph
A history of British stagings, translations and adaptations of Greek tragedy over two and a half centuries. It covers productions of Sophocles’ plays, among them versions of the Oedipus story.
Buy on Amazon →Sophocles’ Other Plays
The other surviving plays, including the rest of the Theban cycle.
Antigone — trans. Reginald Gibbons and Charles Segal (2003)
- For: Students
- Form: Verse translation with introduction and notes
A verse translation of Antigone, the play that follows the Oedipus story in Theban legend. It includes an introduction and notes for students.
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Sophocles II: Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus — trans. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (1994)
- For: Scholars
- Form: Greek text with facing prose translation
The second Loeb volume of Sophocles, containing four plays including Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. It gives the Greek with a facing prose translation.
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The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes — trans. Seamus Heaney (version) (1990)
- For: General readers
- Form: Verse version for the stage
Seamus Heaney’s version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes in verse. It is a free adaptation rather than a literal translation.
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