OCTOBER 2026
(1) Urbi et Orbi: The Epicurean Inscription and Prescription of Diogenes of Oinoanda. English translation of the Greek, with Introduction and Notes, by Martin Ferguson Smith, Doxai Series no. V: Testi e studi di filosofia antica, Tab edizioni, Rome. 176 pages. Paperback ISBN 979-12-5669-344-3, 17.00 Euros. Also Open Access. March 2026.
Diogenes has a message of moral healing and salvation for his fellow citizens, and also for so-called foreigners who are actually fellow citizens in a world which is a single country and home for humanity. His gigantic Greek inscription, the longest known from the ancient world, is one of the most remarkable classical finds of the last two centuries. It also has the fascination of an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.
Urbi et Orbi is essential reading for all who are interested in philosophy, and is highly relevant to the modern world.
(2) Martin the Epicurean Autobiography of Martin Ferguson Smith. SilverWood Books, Bristol. 312 Pages, 50 Plates, Paperback £15.99, ISBN 978-1-80042-324-4. Also e-book £9.99. 15 April 2026.
Martin is world-famous for his work on the Epicurean writers Lucretius (first century BC) and Diogenes of Oinoanda (second century AD), and he has attempted to follow in their philosophical footsteps. The book describes his education at Shrewsbury School and Trinity College, Dublin; his career as a university teacher in Bangor and Durham; and his thirty years of contented isolation on the remote island of Foula in Shetland, where he has written extensively about twentieth-century writers, artists, and social reformers.
"The pairing of these two books is inspired. The first gives us a vivid translation of the latest version of the inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda with a helpful introduction and commentary explaining it, while the second tells the story of the man who has (more than anyone alive) devoted his life to the inscription and who has lived his life by its precepts. If you need convincing that ancient texts still matter, then read these two books and you will see just how much we can learn in the conduct of our daily lives from the long-deceased.
The accompanying book Martin the Epicurean is extraordinary.
[Smith] ends ... on a serene and contented note. Like any good Epicurean he has no fear of death and his ability to enjoy life with very little of modern technology shows him to be living almost exactly as Diogenes did all those years ago in his beloved Turkey.
[He] lives by his beliefs, and his meticulous scholarship informs his heart as well as his mind. These two books reveal in glorious and moving detail a man of rare - unique in fact - authenticity who has overcome all manner of adversity to show the rest of us how being true to yourself can make you happy".
Classics for All, Reading Room (Dr John Godwin) - classicsforall.org.uk
A thoroughly engaging and frank account of a life from a scholar more used to shining a light on his subjects. ...
A remarkable mind looks back at his childhood, recalling in fine detail the characters and incidents - many highly amusing and others poignant - bringing back to life another time and place in post war Britain. ...
[A] very human story of a man who has often chosen the path less travelled even as he has earned worldwide respect for his contributions to the canon of academia. ...
Highly recommended.
Amazon 5-star review (Sean Deeney)Response to a copy of Urbi et Orbi sent by the author to Pope Leo XIV. The Apostolic Nuncio in London wrote on 28 May 2026: "Having forwarded the aforementioned copy to the Vatican Secretariat of State, I have duly been asked to express His Holiness' gratitude to you for the thoughtful gesture".
Archbishop Miguel Maury, Apostolic Nuncio
Martin the Epicurean provides a window into the life of the researcher who lies behind this prodigious volume of work. At times startlingly honest, this autobiography is an engaging and very readable account of an eventful life. ...
The story of Oinoanda, a remote ruined city in Turkey, and the inscription of the Epicurean philosopher Diogenes, unfolds slowly through the book ... These texts were to form the main focus of Smith's life work ...
Diogenes tells his readers that he is "at the sunset" of his life, and that he wants to share “the remedies that bring salvation” – the philosophy of Epicurus which will “cure the moral sickness that afflicts most human beings, by eliminating their unnecessary fears and desires and so enabling them to achieve the perfect peace of mind in which perfect happiness consists”. It’s hard not to draw the parallel with Martin himself, who at the age of 86, and following a brush with death, also wishes to pass on these philosophies which have shaped his life – not only through academic study but also in adopting these principles of living himself. An Epicurean indeed. The Shetland Times (Dr Val Turner)"[The] message [of the inscription] ...is that true happiness can be acquired only through the teaching of the Hellenistic hedonist and atomist Epicurus. ... Much of our knowledge of Diogenes and his inscription is thanks to the work of Martin Ferguson Smith and his collaborators. ... This [Urbi et Orbi] is a handy starting point for anyone curious about the peculiar inscription and should prompt further inquiry into the social and political context in which it stood."
Times Literary Supplement (Professor James Warren)"Smith's autobiography [Martin the Epicurean] has been published alongside an annotated English translation of the inscription [Urbi et Orbi] ... The contents of the two books overlap in two ways. First, the autobiography, as one might expect, includes a substantial account of Smith's work on the inscription, beginning with his first visit to Oinoanda in 1968. Second, much of the life recorded in Martin the Epicurean has been informed, as the title suggests, by his adherence to Epicureanism. ... His narrative offers an excellent account of the joys and pains of work on the "gigantic jigsaw puzzle" of the inscription."
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Dr Christopher Stray)Martin the Epicurean: by Martin Ferguson Smith, Bristol, SilverWood Books, 2026, 311 pp., £15.99 (paperback), ISBN 9781800423244
Marianne Thormählen
Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
This autobiography by one of the most distinguished Classicists of his generation came into being after the author-subject had received two requests from published authors to write his biography. No reader of this engrossing volume, written in lucid and vigorous prose, will doubt the reason for these requests: the story of Martin Ferguson Smith’s life is fascinating from start to finish (at 86, he speaks matter-of-factly of “[nearing] death” [p. 9]). The book is of great interest not only to scholars in his field but also to Humanities academics in general, not least those active in the field of English Studies. In addition, it will appeal to general readers interested in the great existential issues.
Born in Birmingham in 1940 and raised on a farm in Shropshire, Martin Ferguson Smith was educated at a preparatory school in Herefordshire and subsequently at Shrewsbury School. Lucky in some of his teachers, especially the master who taught English Literature to Smith’s Upper Sixth, Frank McEachran, the young Martin was encouraged to relish the declaiming of poetry and prose which possesses what T. S. Eliot called “[t]he inexplicable mystery of sound”.1
The Classics were always his main field, however, and in 1958 Smith began a four-year course of study at Trinity College, Dublin, where he distinguished himself by winning a scholarship and other honours year by year. He went on to take an MLitt, which led on to an Assistant Lectureship at the University College of North Wales in Bangor, where he stayed for 25 years, advancing to a Personal Chair aged 37. The subject of his MLitt thesis was Lucretius, whose De Rerum Natura he translated (into prose), a translation published in 1969. Lucretius looms large in Smith’s life; he edited W. H. D. Rouse’s translation for the Loeb Classical Library (1975, subsequently republished twice).
Having gone to Dublin as a Quaker, as his mother was (and remained), Martin Ferguson Smith lost his faith during his student years under the influence of Lucretius and his master Epicurus, and he defines himself as “a high-church atheist” (p. 65). Religious incompatibility was clearly a factor in the failure of his marriage to a young Roman Catholic Dublin woman. Another difficulty was Smith’s politics; a Marxist in early adulthood, he was for some time a member of the Republic of Ireland’s Communist Party, the Irish Workers’ League, which made politics a sensitive area between the spouses. It is interesting that Smith, writing of these matters in his old age, seemingly still cannot understand why his atheism and his politics posed such problems for his wife (“I hoped she would judge me by any personal qualities I had rather than by my membership of a political party” [p. 72]); a similarly intriguing lack of comprehension is seen in his chagrined reaction to his Romanian fiancée’s disapproval of his uncritical interest in Enver Hoxha’s Albania.
Epicurus had another disciple in Diogenes of Oinoanda, a contemporary of Emperor Hadrian who summarised the teaching of Epicurus in a vast inscription on a stoa that collapsed with time. Only about a third of the inscription, estimated at 25,000 words, has been recovered and translated. In this work Martin Ferguson Smith has been the prime mover and chief communicator for about half a century. During repeated visits to Oinoanda in Lycia, in what is now southwestern Turkey, he brought numerous stones bearing inscriptions to light. Working at first alone except for a local assistant and later as a member of groups, Smith braved obstacles created by the harsh if beautiful landscape, his own ill-health, which was exacerbated by adverse material conditions, Turkish authorities and obstructive members of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. The story of his persistence in the face of all this adversity, not least his perennial eye problems and his weak lungs, is nothing short of heroic, and the world owes the existence of the most extensive inscription of Classical Antiquity to his unremitting efforts over many years. His latest published work on it, Urbi et Orbi: The Epicurean Inscription and Prescription of Diogenes of Oinoanda, appeared from Tab Edizioni press in Rome in 2026 and is available online.
For scholars and critics working in the field of English Literature, Smith’s works on English writers and artists of the early twentieth century offer numerous and sometimes startling new insights. The editor of his father’s cousin Rose Macaulay’s letters to his aunt, Jean Smith (Dearest Jean: Rose Macaulay’s Letters to a Cousin, Manchester University Press, 2011), Smith published a number of essays on people connected with the “Bloomsbury” phenomenon, first in a succession of articles in English Studies and subsequently in a book, In and Out of Bloomsbury: Biographical Essays on Twentieth-Century Writers and Artists (Manchester University Press, 2021). He went on to publish a book on a neglected early-twentieth-century artist, Helen Coombe, in 2023 (The Artist Helen Coombe (1864–1937): The Tragedy of Roger Fry’s Wife), and he has written additional studies on early-twentieth-century personalities, including the penal reformer Madeleine Symons. Smith’s works are characterised by a blend of meticulous scholarship, common sense and psychological acuity. He is merciless in his exposure of errors made by predecessors who have unquestioningly passed on mistaken notions; as he points out in a Diogenes context, “[i]t is amazing how blind scholars can be when they follow one another like sheep” (p. 231).
In his mid-fifties, Martin Ferguson Smith realised a dream he had cherished since boyhood, that of moving to a remote Scottish island offering the seclusion, not to say isolation, that he craved all his life. Since 1995, having taken early retirement from the Professorship of Classics in Durham to which he had moved from Bangor in 1988, he has lived in a croft on the Shetland island of Foula, on the same latitude as the southern tip of Greenland. On this hilly island of 4 ¾ square miles, he leads a simple life growing kale and potatoes (“tatties” [p. 275]) and avoiding most social events, especially those occasioned by Christmas and the New Year (celebrated in early January, according to the Julian calendar). Approximately 30 people live on Foula, and despite his self-acknowledged “ruthless unsociability” (p. 217), some of them lend prompt and friendly assistance with various practical matters.
The author of this absorbing book has lived a long life in accordance with the Epicurean notions he embraced in his youth and imparted masses of scholarly knowledge to the world, with a range of learning which one is tempted to call unparalleled. His Durham students’ loss – heartfelt tributes in course evaluations speak of his classes as occasions which made life feel meaningful – has been scholarly publication’s gain. The pages of this book abound with references to the talents and virtues of friends, some friendships going back for several decades, and his love for his daughter (and in due course stalwart assistant) Lucinda is a touching leitmotif in them. Smith does not spare himself, and the book occasionally substantiates the “selfishness” he freely acknowledges; but this account of his life and its remarkable achievements shines with courage, benevolence and integrity.
Notes
1. Eliot, “To Walter de la Mare,” 205 (last line).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Reference
Eliot, T. S. “To Walter de la Mare.” In The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot, edited by T. S. Eliot, 204–205. London: Faber and Faber, 1969.
"Women Students in the National Gallery, London, 1882-1891: Opportunities and Obstacles". British Art Journal Online, 2026. 6 plates. Forthcoming online.
“Marie Jane Naylor (1856-1940): Artist and Suffragette”, British Art Journal Online, 2026. 12 plates. Forthcoming online.
The first-ever work entirely devoted to this talented artist, admired in France as well as in Britain, who became a suffragette and served two prison sentences for her militant actions.
“The Artist Helen Coombe (1864-1937): Addenda”, British Art Journal Online, 2026. 8 plates. Forthcoming online.
Presentation of three items (paintings and letters) not included in Martin's recent biography of Helen Coombe, wife of Roger Fry.
The bulky and eagerly-awaited work presenting the results of the German-led survey of Oinoanda in 2007-2015 was published in December 2025. It includes the section: “Die epikureische Inschrift des Diogenes von Oinoanda”, in M. Bachmann, J. Hammerstaedt, E. Laufer (eds), Oinoanda: Ergebnisse der Surveys 2007-2015, Wiesbaden, 2025, 371-393. Many other sections of the work contain numerous mentions of Diogenes.
The Third International "Blue Anatolia" (Mavi Anadolu) Philosophy Symposium was held in Muğla, Türkiye, on 22-23 May 2026. One of the sessions on 22 May was devoted exclusively to Martin's work. Two papers by him were read in Turkish: "Readers and Non-readers of Diogenes of Oinoanda's Writings on the Wall" and "Diogenes of Oinoanda Away from Oinoanda", the second paper being a repetition (by overwhelming popular demand!) of a paper he first contributed to an earlier symposium. Between them, Prof H. Nur Beyaz Erkızan spoke in Turkish about Martin as a discoverer and editor of Diogenes. One of the talks on 23 May was an illustrated one, given in Turkish by Prof Jürgen Hammerstaedt of Cologne University just after he had flown through the night from Paris. Its title translates as "The Epicurean Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda: Past and Future Researches Concerning an Unique Piece of World Cultural Heritage".
Encouraging news for the future of Oinoanda and Diogenes is that the site has been nominated by Turkish individuals with the appropriate expertise and authority for the grant of UNESCO World Heritage status. The outcome may not be known for some time, but watch this space!
Martin, elected a Fellow (FSA) in 1975, has been honoured by the Society with a Life Fellowship in recognition of half a century of belonging.
APRIL 2025
The Artist Helen Coombe (1864-1937): The Tragedy of Roger Fry’s Wife.
London: Paul Holberton Publishing for Hogarth Arts. Hardback, published 1 October 2023.
72 illustrations. ISBN 978-1-913645-53-3, RRP £45 (€50, $55).
The book continues to receive high praise, and not only from art historians.
“The deeply moving chronicle of an artist whose promising career was cut short by severe mental illness. … Smith’s fine book poignantly evokes Helen Coombe’s tragic life while also richly celebrating her creative talent.”
The British Art Journal (Peter Cormack)
"The tragedy of Helen's illness is deepened and darkened by her brilliance as an artist. ... Brilliantly illuminating and deeply moving, The Artist Helen Coombe is a biographical treasure."
English Studies (Linda Elisabeth LaPinta)
“Meticulous biography …Little of [Coombe’s] work survives, but illustrations here give flashes of her genius.”
RA [Royal Academy] Magazine (Ed Bankes)
""Coombe ... was not some generic madwoman in the attic, but a painter and designer of note, a far better one than Fry had ever been. ... Smith aims to give Coombe back her identity, not only as an artist of considerable achievement, but also as a woman with a distinct emotional and social trajectory. ... The correspondence [between the couple], especially on Coombe's side, flashes with wit, intelligence and despair".
The Times Literary Supplement, "His better half: A painter and designer who outshone her famous husband" (Kathryn Hughes)
“A compelling and meticulously researched biography.”
Virginia Woolf Bulletin (Wendy Jones Nakanishi)
“Highly original and an absolutely key contribution to the convoluted and often muddled history of the Bloomsbury Group - in its widest sense.”
Robin Simon, Editor of The British Art Journal
"A magisterial achievement".
Marianne Thormählen, Professor emerita, Lund University
"... a significant contribution to the history of art. ... An important story of a woman whose struggles with her mental health robbed her of so much. ... the barriers she faced were greater than those presented by illness alone. As a wife and mother, she had less freedom to work than her husband, ... It is perhaps no surprise to learn that [she] ... had no studio of her own in the marital home. I wonder what Fry's close friend Virginia Woolf might have said about that!"
Cathy Hunt, Independent researcher
"Moved to tears."
Gela Dechert, Artist and social educator (Fränkische Schweiz, Germany)
“Meticulously researched”
Woolf Studies Annual (Elizabeth Berkowitz)
Helen Coombe was the wife of the artist and art critic Roger Fry, who was to join Virginia Woolf and a dozen or so others in the Bloomsbury Group. Although this highly original book contributes much to knowledge of Roger Fry, it focuses throughout on Helen Coombe’s life and work. It reveals a strong-minded individual, who, with little financial support from her family, trained and became established as an artist whose genius won the admiration of her contemporaries. It presents examples of her fine work, including pictures, stained glass, and decorations of musical instruments. The serious mental illness, which erupted soon after her marriage and was identified long after her death as schizophrenia, was a tragedy for her, for her husband and family, and for British art: in the last 27 years of her life, she never lived at home, never saw her children, and never fulfilled any commissions. There are strong indications that her illness’s root cause was genetic, but that it was aggravated by Roger Fry’s behaviour. He wanted a wife who would take second place to his artistic career and ambitions. This did not suit her, and in every episode of her illness she turned against him. Two of his later lovers, Vanessa Bell and Josette Coatmellec, also found him “impossible”, and, when the latter committed suicide, Virginia Woolf wondered “how long can Roger love a woman without driving her mad”.
The book is a “must” for all interested in the Bloomsbury Group, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the handling of mental illness at a time before efficacious antipsychotic drugs were available.
SEPTEMBER 2023
In and out of Bloomsbury: Biographical Essays on Twentieth-Century Writers and Artists. Manchester: Manchester University Press, first published in hardback in July 2021, re-issued in paperback, 27 June 2023. 46 illustrations. ISBN 978-1-5261-7193-1, £20.00 ($29.95).
Included in 2025 in Manchester University Press's Literature and Theatre Collection, a newly-expanded digital resource.
“Delightfully written essays packed with revelations”
Robin Simon, editor of The British Art Journal
“A wealth of colourful new material”
Odin Dekkers, former editor of English Studies
“Fascinating essays”
Mark Hussey, distinguished Bloomsbury scholar
“Masterful”
The Times Literary Supplement (Vanessa Curtis)
“A delight from beginning to end”
English Studies (Marianne Thormählen)
“Both instructs and inspires”
Literature Cambridge (Mitchell Alcrim)
“…will have broad appeal. … achieves what few academic works can boast”
VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center (Luci Frerichs Parrish)
“A masterclass in pursuing and documenting research”
Woolf Studies Annual (Elizabeth Berkowitz)
*Longlisted for the William M.B. Berger Prize for British Art History 2022
NOVEMBER 2020
“Fifty Years of New Epicurean Discoveries at Oinoanda”, Cronache Ercolanesi 50 (2020) 241-258.
The article chronicles the remarkable story of the Greek inscription set up by the Epicurean philosopher Diogenes of Oinoanda (the longest inscription known from the ancient world) from antiquity to the present, with particular focus on the discoveries and rediscoveries made at Oinoanda in the fifty years 1968-2017. Since 1968, when Martin inaugurated new investigations, huge progress has been made. As he points out:
“The number of fragments [of the inscription] has much more than tripled, from 88 to 305, and the quantity of text has more than doubled, from about 3,550 words to about 8,000. The length of the known parts of Diogenes’ inscription is now only slightly less than the combined length of Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus, Letter to Menoeceus, and Principal Doctrines (Kyriai Doxai).”
He concludes:“Diogenes’ inscription … deserves a special place in the history of classical studies as one of the most remarkable documents to have come down to us from antiquity.”
In a similar vein, Professor Alexander Verlinsky of Saint Petersburg wrote to Martin:“I firmly believe that your Diogenes is one of the most outstanding discoveries in classics of the last two centuries.” (E-mail, 12 November 2017, quoted here with the writer’s kind permission)
READ HERE: https://www.martinfergusonsmith.com/pdf/CRONACHEERCOLANES.pdf