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Gildas De Excidio Brittaniae

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As the other reviewer notes, it is an incomplete version, lacking the Epistle addressed to the five tyrants. Furthermore, certain passages in Giles' translation seem to be shaped by the academic studies of his time, rather than a direct translation.

This translation was first published in 1844. It is, as the other reviewers pointed out, incomplete, missing one of the most important pieces - the peroration to the Five Tyrants. Gildas himself wrote in extraordinarily complicated and idiomatic (if grammatically perfect) Latin, whose understanding has greatly improved (as if you couldn't guess) in the years since 1844, and certainly needs a better translation. And as if that wasn't enough, there are at least two more recent and perfectly functional translations, Williams (1899) and Winterbottom (1978), the earlier of which is out of copyright, perfectly available and has a commentary parts of which are still valuable. So why did Penguin resurrect this prehistoric oddity? They must be mad.

This is the J.A. Giles translation, written in the nineteenth century, but it isn't the whole text! It includes the history, but not the part addressed to the five tyrants!

Gildas, a Briton, represents the early history of his people using texts from foreign authors, as those of his countrymen have either been "consumed in the fires, or exiled with his countrymen."

An early Christian as well, Gildas represents the backwardness of the early Britons in first inviting the pagan Saxons to defend England when Rome could no longer offer protection. A few words on Rome leaving instructions to the Britons on how to manufacture arms and protect themselves, and remarks on early defense against the Scots and Picts round out parts of the text, but scriptural statements as injunctions to his people form the main core of this highly readable work.

A fine translation with footnotes of the earliest English historian.