Plutarch was one of the most popular classical authors of the English renaissance. These volumes present selected translations from the Moralia and the Parallel Lives and put them in the context of Plutarch's wider influence in Tudor and Stuart England. They include selections from two established classics of English renaissance translation, North's Lives (1579) and Holland's Morals (1603), but also print a number of less well-known translations of individual Essays and Lives, in some cases for the first time: Thomas Wyatt's The Quiet of Mind (1528); Thomas Elyot's The Education of Children (1530); Thomas Blundeville's The Learned Prince (1561); and Henry Parker, Lord Morley's Life of Theseus and Life of Aemilius Paullus (1542-46/7). By representing the full range of translations of Plutarch in the period, the volumes highlight the variety of translation practices and the different social, political, and cultural contexts in which Plutarch was read and translated in Tudor and Stuart England.

Fred Schurink's edition Plutarch in English, 1528-1603 is divided into two volumes, for the Essays and the Lives respectively.