and... and... and...

The Iliad has had a far-reaching impact on Western literature and culture, inspiring writers, artists and classical composers across the ages. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of st

Before there was fantasy, there was The Odyssey. After the fall of Troy, the cunning hero Odysseus is cast into a brutal, decade-long struggle against gods, monsters, and fate itself. He outwits the Cyclops, resists the enchantress Circe, sails past the Sirens, and survives the wrath of Poseidon--all while longing for home. Back in Ithaca, his wife Penelope fends off ruthless suitors devouring his kingdom. Disguised and broken, Odysseus returns not as a king, but as a ghost of war--rising again to reclaim his throne through sheer will. The epic is attributed to Homer, a legendary ancient Greek poet believed to have lived around the 8th century BCE. Though little is known about him, his works, The Odyssey and The Iliad, became the foundation of Western storytelling--timeless tales of heroism, fate, and the cost of war.

The greatest of all epics, soon to be a film by Christopher Nolan! "This may be the best translation of The Odyssey yet."The Telegraph A magnificent feat of translation, hailed by classicists and poets alike as a "momentous achievement" "thrilling," "rich and rhythmical," "superb," "mesmerizing," "searingly faithful--yet absolutely original." With this edition of Homer's Odyssey, the celebrated author, critic, and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn brings the great epic to vividly poetic new life. Widely known for his essays on classical literature and culture in The New Yorker and many other publications, Mendelsohn gives us a line-for-line rendering of The Odyssey that is both engrossing as poetry and true to its source. Rejecting the streamlining and modernizing approach of many recent translations, he artfully reproduces the epic's formal qualities--meter, enjambment, alliteration, assonance--and in so doing restores to Homer's masterwork its archaic grandeur. Mendelsohn's expansive six

When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017--revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)--critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira, New York Times) and "a cultural landmark" (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer's other great epic--the most revered war poem of all time.The Iliad roars with the clamor of arms, the bellowing boasts of victors, the fury and grief of loss, and the anguished cries of dying men. It sings, too, of the sublime magnitude of the world--the fierce beauty of nature and the gods' grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals. In Wilson's hands, this thrilling, magical, and often horrifying tale now gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes, in crisp but resonant language that evokes the poem's deep pathos and reveals palpably real

Homer's great epic, The Odyssey, is perhaps Western literature's first adventure story, and certainly remains one of its finest. It describes King Odysseus of Ithaca's epic, ten-year quest to return h

The Odyssey reveals a universal order where gods intercede in the destinies of men, heroes are both deceitful and brave and a sea voyage becomes a test of human ingenuity and endurance. Following the