Odyssey: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

The Original Homecoming Story

The Odyssey needs no introduction, but the translation matters enormously. Robert Fagles' 1996 version, published by Penguin Classics, is the one that most American readers encountered in school and the one most classicists recommend. Fagles captures the propulsive narrative energy of Homer's Greek without sacrificing accuracy or falling into the stilted diction that plagues many older translations. The poem moves. You feel the oars in the water.

What You Get

Odysseus' ten-year journey home from Troy: the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, the descent to the underworld, the long test of Penelope's fidelity, and the bloody reckoning with the suitors. Homer composed this roughly 2,700 years ago, and it remains one of the most perfectly constructed narratives in any language. Every adventure story, every homecoming tale, every castaway novel written since owes something to it.

The Deluxe Edition

This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition features french flaps, deckle-edged pages, and a substantial introduction by Bernard Knox that places the poem in its historical and literary context. Knox's essay alone is worth the price of admission. He covers the oral tradition, the archaeological evidence for Troy, the structure of Homeric composition, and why the Odyssey endures. A beautiful object and a complete scholarly package in one volume.

About This Edition

Author: Homer (translated by Robert Fagles)
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Format: Paperback (Deluxe Edition)
ISBN: 9780140268867