Plutarch's Lives is a series of fifty biographies of famous Greek and Roman men written around 100 AD. In Our Young Folks' Plutarch, Rosalie Kaufman has adapted these biographies for young readers. In the preface she writes, “The lives which we here present in a condensed simple form are prepared from those of Plutarch. Plutarch says, ‘It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories, but lives.’ This is why anecdotes, short sayings or a word or two of repartee are frequently recorded. For they furnish a better insight into the thoughts and character of a man than his most glorious exploit, famous siege, or bloody battle. So it is lives, and not a history, that we offer; this must be borne in mind when some of the most important events the world has ever known receive insufficient mention.”