The Art of Love

Are you a sought-after dreamboat forever turning down invitations from attractive admirers? Is your life filled with passionate escapades and fashionable parties? Do you look and feel fantastic all the time? If not, then perhaps there is something you can learn from Ovid. Including both the Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) and the Remedia Amoris (The Cure for Love), this book contains all men need to know about the best places to pick up girls, how to handle illicit affairs, how to look after a girlfriend when she has a cold, how to dress suavely, and how to make women jealous. It also has plenty of tips for women ranging from how to create a beguiling hairstyle to how to seduce men at parties and show off your best attributes while frolicking in bed. This delightfully witty handbook was found so shocking on its first publication that poor Ovid was sent into exile in disgrace. Since the Emperor Augustus had it taken off the shelves of Rome's libraries in 8 AD it has also been banned by the Vatican and the United States  Customs Office at various points in its illustrious career.

Ovid was born in Italy in 43 BC. His earliest surviving work is the collection of love poems called the Amores, which was followed by the Heroides. The Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) and the Remedia Amoris (The Cure for Love) were probably written between 2 BC and 2 AD, and were followed by his two epic poems the Fasti and the Metamorphoses. In 8 AD Ovid fell out of favor with the Emperor Augustus and was banished to what is now Romania. While in exile he wrote Tristia, Ibis, and the Epistulae ex Ponto which consists of letters appealing for help in his efforts to be recalled to Rome. He died in exile in 18 AD. Tom Payne is the former deputy literary editor of the Daily Telegraph and the author ofFame: What the Classics Tell Us About Our Cult of Celebrity. Hephzibah Anderson is a journalist and the author of Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year without Sex.