The Greek Myths: 1

Not for over a century, since Smith's Dictionary of Classical Mythology first appeared, has the attempt been made to provide for the English reader a complete 'mythology,' in the sense of retelling in modern terms of the Greekk tales of gods and heroes. In the two volumes of this book Robert Graves, whose combination of classical scholarship and anthropological competence has already been so brilliantly demonstrated in The White Goddess and The Golden Fleece, and the other novels, supplies the need. In nearly two hundred sections, it covers the Creation myths, the legends of the birth and lives of the great Olympians, the Theseus, Oedipus, and Heracles cycles, the Argonaut voyage, the tale of Troy, and much else. All the scattered elements of each myth have been assembled into a harmonius narrative, and many variations are recorded which may help to determine its ritual or historical meaning. Full references to the classical sources, and copius indices, make the book as valuable to the scholar as to the general reader; and a full commentary on each myth explains and interprets the classical version in the light of to-day's archaeological and anthropological knowledge.

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