The Augustan poet Albius Tibullus, a contemporary of Virgil, Horace and Propertius, wrote two books of elegies in the years between 33 BC and 19 BC. Over the last three decades Tibullan scholarship has made significant advances in the understanding of his work, so that critics are now in a position to appreciate why he enjoyed such a high reputation as an elegist amongst the ancients. The present edition and major commentary by Robert Maltby is the first in English since K.F. Smith (1913) to treat Tibullus' entire oeuvre within a single cover. It takes full account of up-to-date scholarship on this learned, elegant and, until recently, much underestimated poet.The text is based on that of A.G. Lee (1990), variations from which are listed at the end and discussed in the notes. The Introduction includes a short history of the text and an assessment of recent Tibullan scholarship with a complete alphabetical listing of bibliography on the Corpus Tibullianum for the years 1970-2000. The ancient testimonia are quoted in full and there are sections on Tibullus' life and times, his relations with his patron, and Augustan themes in his work. The literary significance of Tibullus' mistresses and the other characters in his elegies, together with the structure, style and metre of Books I and II and their links with contemporary literature, are all clearly and succinctly reviewed. The detailed comment on each poem is preceded by an introductory essay.