Martin Ferguson Smith, OBE, is professor emeritus of Classics at Durham University. He has an international reputation as a classical scholar, including for his discoveries and publications of Ancient Greek philosophical texts from Oinoanda in Turkey, and for his highly original research and writing on British writers, artists, and social reformers, on whom he has written four books: Dearest Jean: Rose Macaulay's Letters to a Cousin (Manchester UP, 2011); Madeleine Symons: Social and Penal Reformer (SilverWood, 2017); In and Out of Bloomsbury: Essays on 20th-Century Writers and Artists (Manchester UP, 2021); and The Artist Helen Coombe (1864-1937): The Tragedy of Roger Fry's Wife (Paul Holberton, 2023). SilverWood has now published his autobiography, Martin the Epicurean (2026). Its title refers to his lifelong interest in the moral philosophy of Epicurus, especially as expounded by the Roman poet Lucretius (first century BC) and by Diogenes of Oinoanda (2nd century AD). It refers also to his attempt to live his own life in accordance with Epicurean teachings, most successfully during the thirty years he has been a resident of Foula, a remote island in Shetland without a shop or place of entertainment. The book also describes his schooling in England, his university education in Dublin, his professorial career in Wales and Durham, his fieldwork in Turkey since 1968, and his adventures in communist Albania and Romania. It is published simultaneously with his new translation of and commentary on Diogenes: Urbi et Orbi: The Epicurean Inscription and Prescription of Diogenes of Oinoanda (Tab Edizioni, Rome, 2026).
Find out more about Martin Ferguson Smith here.
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