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Homer

The Odyssey

£70

Illustrated By Grahame Baker-Smith

Introduced By Bernard Knox

Translated By Robert Fagles

The greatest quest ever written is published as a stunning Folio edition that pairs Robert Fagles’s renowned translation with the illustrations of Grahame Baker-Smith.

The Odyssey

£70

Book Details

Presentation Box & BindingQuarter-bound in buckram with printed cloth sides
Blocked slipcase
Printed map endpapers

Dimensions10 inches x 6¾ inches

FontSet in Monotype Centaur

Pages592 pages

AuthorHomer

Illustrated ByGrahame Baker-Smith

IllustrationFrontispiece and 8 colour illustrations

Publication Date30/03/2005

Editor's Notes

After the Trojan War, Odysseus, the mythological king of the island of Ithaca, sets sail for home, where his wife Penelope and young son Telemachus await him. But with the god Poseidon keeping a hostile eye, Odysseus’ journey is fraught with perils. For ten years he struggles against new enemies and adversities, storm and shipwreck. When he finally reaches home disguised as a beggar, it is to face more treachery and even greater danger.

Presented in a striking, quarter-bound buckram binding, this edition takes the renowned translation of Robert Fagles. Its focus on contemporary English phrasing and idioms results in an eloquent and engrossing read that will appeal to those familiar with Homer, as well as new readers. As befits the era, there is mythological allusion in Grahame Baker-Smith’s illustrations, while the Homeric tragedy and the nuances of this translation are discussed by classicist Bernard Knox in an introduction that ensures this edition should be on every collector’s shelf.

About the Illustrator

Grahame Baker-Smith

Grahame Baker-Smith is a self-taught illustrator. He began to experiment with digital techniques, including Photoshop, several years ago, and now combines painting and drawing in traditional media with photographed and scanned textures, enjoying the control that digital methods give an artist over every aspect of the image. He has illustrated 16 books for The Folio Society, including Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne (2001), The Siege and Fall of Troy by Robert Graves (2005), Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (2011) and The Time Machine & The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells (2019).

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About the Illustrator

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Homer was believed to have been born between the 12th and 8th centuries BC and may have lived on the coast of Asia Minor. Little is known about his life beyond which can be gleaned in his stories, and there have been many assumptions made based on his writing and the characters that appear in his work. It is generally accepted that The Iliad was written first and The Odyssey was written later in Homer’s life. Although these are the only two works attributed to Homer, many others have been linked to him, including Homeric Hymns.

Bernard Knox was born in Bradford in 1914. He studied Classics at Cambridge, after which he fought in the Spanish Civil War with the Republican forces. After the Second World War, Knox studied at Yale and earned a doctorate. He worked as a professor and went on to lead the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington. As well as writing the introductions to Robert Fagles’s translations of Homer’s The Iliad (1990) and The Odyssey (1996) and Virgil’s Aeneid (2006), he wrote a number of books including Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles’ Tragic Hero and His time (1957). Knox died in 2010.

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The Odyssey