The Odyssey

Homer's classic tale of the voyage of Odysseus as he tries to return home after the Trojan War.

Back Cover: Robert Fitzgerald's is the best and best-loved modern translation of The Odyssey, and the only one admired in its own right as a great poem in English. Fitzgerald's supple verse is ideally suited to the story of Odysseus' long journey back to his wife and home after the Trojan War. Homer's tale of love, adventure, food and drink, sensual pleasure, and mortal danger reached the English-language reader in all its glory.

The classicist D.S. Carne-Ross explains the many aspects of the poem in his introduction, written especially for this edition, which also features a map, a glossary of names and places, and a guide to the best critical writing on Homeric poetry, as well as Fitzgerald's own postscript.

Since 1961, more than two million copies of this Odyssey have been sold, and it has beem the standard translation for three generations of students and poets. This edition deepens our understanding and enjoyment of the greatest epic of all epic poems.

About the Editor: Robert Fitzgerald's versions of The Iliad, The Aeneid, and the Oedipus plays of Sophocles (with Dudley Fitts) are also classics. An admired poet and teacher of writing, he died in 1988.