Euripides is the most modern of the great Greek tragedians, as the four plays in this volume demonstrate. Ion is concerned with the problem of reconciling religious faith with the facts of human life, whilst The Women of Troy is a plain denunciation of the ruthlessness of war. In Helen Euripides light-heartedly parodied himself, and finally, in his last and probably greatest tragedy, The Bacchae, he dealt with mob violence and mass hysteria.

In this second edition Philip Vellacott has entirely re-written the dialogue of The Bacchae and The Women of Troy in verse and has thoroughly revised his introduction.