The book shown is a 1950 edition of Plutarch's Twelve Lives, translated by John Dryden, published by the Fine Editions Press in Cleveland, Ohio.
This book is a curated selection of ancient biographies from Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which was originally written in the 1st century AD. Plutarch was a Greek philosopher and historian who set out to examine the character, moral virtues, and structural flaws of the most powerful leaders of the ancient world.Instead of writing dense history books full of dates and battle strategies, Plutarch focused on personal anecdotes, psychological traits, and the private lives of these men to show how their personal ethics shaped world history.