Henry T. Riley's prose translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books VIII–XV, opens a vivid gateway into a world where myth, history, and transformation are inseparable. From Theseus, Dædalus, and Orpheus to the fall of Troy, the founding of Rome, and the death of Julius Caesar, the poem unfolds as both a literary masterpiece and a vast treasury of ancient learning. Riley presents it as a richly annotated guide to Greek and Roman tradition, customs, and belief. His version is also a defense of faithful scholarship: literal prose, explanatory notes, and close attention to mythological context are set against earlier translations he finds loose, awkward, or incomplete. Drawing on ancient authorities and learned commentators, the annotations invite readers to judge the myths by original sources. Within that frame, the stories blaze with betrayal, grief, divine punishment, and metamorphosis: Scylla's fatal love for Minos, Ceyx and Halcyone's sea-bound tragedy, Hercules' death and apotheosis, Orpheus' losses, and the long arc from Troy to Rome, where change becomes the law of nature and the poet's own fame is made eternal. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.