Waterfield was born in 1952, and studied Classics at Manchester University, where he achieved a first class degree in 1974. He went on to research ancient Greek philosophy at King's College, Cambridge until 1978, after which he became a lecturer at Newcastle University and then St Andrews University. He later became a copy-editor and later a commissioning editor for Penguin Books . He is now a self-employed writer.
Plato: Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Euthydemus (translations, introductions, notes) in Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues (ed. T.J. Saunders), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1987
Ps.-Iamblichus: The Theology of Arithmetic (translation, introduction, notes; foreword by K. Critchlow), Phanes Press, 1988
Xenophon: Conversations of Socrates (translations of Apology, Memorabilia, Symposium and Oeconomicus, with introductions and notes; partly a revision of earlier versions by H. Tredennick), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1990
Plutarch: Essays (translations; introductions and notes by I.G. Kidd), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1992
Epicurus: Letter on Happiness (translation and biography; introduction by J. McDade, S.J.), Rider Books, 1993 (U.S. ed. Chronicle Books, 1996)
Plato: Republic (translation, introduction, notes), Oxford University Press, 1993 (World's Classics, 1994; Book of the Month Club, February 1994)
Plato: Statesman (translation; introduction and notes by J. Annas), Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), 1995
Aristotle: Physics (translation; introduction and notes by D. Bostock), Oxford University Press (World's Classics), 1996
Xenophon: Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (translations of Agesilaus, Hiero, Ways and Means, On Horsemanship, On Hunting and Hipparchicus; introductions and notes by P. Cartledge), Penguin Books (Penguin Classics), 1997
Herodotus: The Histories (translation; introduction and notes by C. Dewald), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 1998 (History Book Club, Book of the Month Club, Reader's Subscription, BCA)
Plutarch: Greek Lives (translations; introductions and notes by P. Stadter), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 1998
Plutarch: Roman Lives (translations; introductions and notes by P. Stadter), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 1999
The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and the Sophists (translations, introductions, notes), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2000
Euripides: Orestes and Other Plays (Ion, Orestes, Phoenician Women, Suppliant Women; translations; introduction by E. Hall; notes by J. Morwood), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2001
Euripides: Heracles and Other Plays (Alcestis, Heracles, Heraclidae, Cyclops; translations; introduction by E. Hall; notes by J. Morwood), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2002
Xenophon: The Expedition of Cyrus (translation; introduction and notes by T. Rood), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2005
Plato: Timaeus and Critias (translation; introduction and notes by A. Gregory), Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2008
General Non-fiction
Prophet: The Life and Times of Kahlil Gibran, Allen Lane, 1998 (Penguin, 1999; U.S. ed., St Martin's Press, 1998; TSP Book Club; Italian ed., Guanda, 2000; Spanish ed., Editorial Complutense, 2000; French ed., Editions Fides-Bellarmin, 2000)
Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis, Macmillan, 2002 (Spanish ed., Debate, 2002)
Athens: From Ancient Ideal to Modern City, Macmillan, 2003
Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age, Faber and Faber/Harvard University Press, 2006
Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths, Faber and Faber/Norton/McClelland & Stewart, 2009
