Robin Anthony Herschel Waterfield is a British classical scholar, translator, editor, and writer of children's fiction.

Career

Waterfield was born in 1952, and studied Classics

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

 at Manchester University, where he achieved a first class degree in 1974. He went on to research ancient Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated in the Roman Empire...

 at King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

 until 1978, after which he became a lecturer at Newcastle University and then St Andrews University. He later became a copy-editor and later a commissioning editor for Penguin Books

Penguin Books

Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

. He is now a self-employed writer.

Translations

• Plato: Philebus (translation, introduction, notes), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1982
• Plato: Theaetetus (translation, introduction, notes), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1987
• Plato: Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Euthydemus (translations, introductions, notes) in Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues (ed. T.J. Saunders), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1987
• Ps.-Iamblichus: The Theology of Arithmetic (translation, introduction, notes; foreword by K. Critchlow), Phanes Press, 1988
• Xenophon: Conversations of Socrates (translations of Apology, Memorabilia, Symposium and Oeconomicus, with introductions and notes; partly a revision of earlier versions by H. Tredennick), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1990
• Plutarch: Essays (translations; introductions and notes by I.G. Kidd), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1992
• Epicurus: Letter on Happiness (translation and biography; introduction by J. McDade, S.J.), Rider Books, 1993 (U.S. ed. Chronicle Books, 1996)
• Plato: Republic (translation, introduction, notes), Oxford University Press, 1993 (World's Classics, 1994; Book of the Month Club, February 1994)
• Plato: Symposium (translation, introduction, notes), Oxford University Press (World's Classics), 1994
• Plato: Gorgias (translation, introduction, notes), Oxford University Press (World's Classics), 1994
• Plato: Statesman (translation; introduction and notes by J. Annas), Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), 1995
• Aristotle: Physics (translation; introduction and notes by D. Bostock), Oxford University Press (World's Classics), 1996
• Xenophon: Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (translations of Agesilaus, Hiero, Ways and Means, On Horsemanship, On Hunting and Hipparchicus
  Hipparchicus
  Hipparchicus is the name usually given to , hipparchikòs, one of the two treatises on horsemanship by the Athenian historian and soldier Xenophon . Other common titles for this work include The cavalry commander and The cavalry general...
  
  ; introductions and notes by P. Cartledge), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1997
• Herodotus: The Histories (translation; introduction and notes by C. Dewald), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 1998 (History Book Club, Book of the Month Club, Reader's Subscription, BCA)
• Plutarch: Greek Lives (translations; introductions and notes by P. Stadter), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 1998
• Plutarch: Roman Lives (translations; introductions and notes by P. Stadter), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 1999
• The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and the Sophists (translations, introductions, notes), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2000
• Euripides: Orestes and Other Plays (Ion, Orestes, Phoenician Women, Suppliant Women; translations; introduction by E. Hall; notes by J. Morwood), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2001
• Euripides: Heracles and Other Plays (Alcestis, Heracles, Heraclidae, Cyclops; translations; introduction by E. Hall; notes by J. Morwood), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2002
• Plato: Phaedrus (translation, introduction, notes), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2002
• Xenophon: The Expedition of Cyrus (translation; introduction and notes by T. Rood), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2005
• Plato: Timaeus and Critias (translation; introduction and notes by A. Gregory), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2008

General Non-fiction

• Prophet: The Life and Times of Kahlil Gibran, Allen Lane, 1998 (Penguin, 1999; U.S. ed., St Martin's Press, 1998; TSP Book Club; Italian ed., Guanda, 2000; Spanish ed., Editorial Complutense, 2000; French ed., Editions Fides-Bellarmin, 2000)
• Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis, Macmillan, 2002 (Spanish ed., Debate, 2002)
• Athens: From Ancient Ideal to Modern City, Macmillan, 2003
• Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age, Faber and Faber/Harvard University Press, 2006
• Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths, Faber and Faber/Norton/McClelland & Stewart, 2009

Children's Adventure Gamebooks

• Rebel Planet, Puffin Books (Puffin Fighting Fantasy Gamebook 18), 1985 (French ed., Gallimard 1986; U.S. ed., Dell 1986; computer game, Adventure Soft 1986; Japanese ed., Shakai Shiso Sha 1987; Danish ed., Borgen 1987; Portuguese ed., Verbo 1991; Brazilian Portuguese ed., Marques-Saraiva, 1992; Czech ed., Perseus 1997)

• Masks of Mayhem, Puffin Books (Puffin Fighting Fantasy Gamebook 23), 1986 (French ed., Gallimard 1987; Japanese ed., Shakai Shiso Sha 1988; Danish ed., Borgen 1988; German ed., Thienemann 1989; Hungarian ed., Taketa 1992; Portuguese ed., Verbo 1993; Hebrew ed., Opus 1993; Czech ed., Perseus, 1999)

• Phantoms of Fear, Puffin Books (Puffin Fighting Fantasy Gamebook 28), 1987 (French ed., Gallimard 1988; Danish ed., Borgen 1989; Japanese ed., Shakai Shiso Sha 1989)

• The Money Spider (with Wilfred Davies), Penguin Books (Penguin Plus), 1988 (Polish ed., eMPi2 1996)

• The Water Spider (with Wilfred Davies), Penguin Books (Penguin Plus), 1988

• Deathmoor, Puffin Books (Puffin Fighting Fantasy Gamebook 55), 1994 (French ed., Gallimard 1996)

Academic titles

• Before Eureka: The Presocratics and Their Science, The Bristol Press, 1989 (U.S. ed., St Martin's Press, 1989)
• Plato: Gorgias, Analysis and Commentary, Project Archelogos [e-publication], 2001