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The Odyssey

The Odyssey Paperback / softback - 1997

by Geraldine McCaughrean

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  • Paperback

A modern retelling of the Homerian classic. The Trojan War is over, and Odysseus must now face the hungry one-eyed giant Polyphemus, the vengeful sea-god Poseidon, the sorceress Circe, and many other dangers on his long and perilous journey home.

Description

Paperback / softback. New. After ten years of war, Odysseus turns his back on Troy and sets sail for home. But his voyage takes another ten years and he must face many dangers. Polyphemus the greedy one-eyed giant, Scylla the six-headed sea monster and even the wrath of the gods themselves, before he is reunited with his wife and son.
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Details

  • Title The Odyssey
  • Author Geraldine McCaughrean
  • Binding Paperback / softback
  • Edition International Ed
  • Condition New
  • Pages 112
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Puffin Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
  • Date 1997-12-01
  • Features Maps
  • Bookseller's Inventory # A9780140383096
  • ISBN 9780140383096 / 0140383093
  • Weight 0.2 lbs (0.09 kg)
  • Dimensions 7 x 5.05 x 0.4 in (17.78 x 12.83 x 1.02 cm)
  • Ages 10 to UP years
  • Grade levels 5 - UP
  • Reading level 890
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: Ancient (To 499 A.D.)
  • Library of Congress subjects Mythology, Greek, Odysseus (Greek mythology)
  • Dewey Decimal Code 883.01

Summary

The Odyssey (Greek: Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon. Indeed it is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature. It was probably composed near the end of the eighth century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek-speaking coastal region of what is now Turkey. - [Wikipedia][1] [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey

From the publisher

Homer was probably born around 725BC on the Coast of Asia Minor, now the coast of Turkey, but then really a part of Greece. Homer was the first Greek writer whose work survives.

He was one of a long line of bards, or poets, who worked in the oral tradition. Homer and other bards of the time could recite, or chant, long epic poems. Both works attributed to Homer – the Iliad and the Odyssey – are over ten thousand lines long in the original. Homer must have had an amazing memory but was helped by the formulaic poetry style of the time.

In the Iliad Homer sang of death and glory, of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Mortal men played out their fate under the gaze of the gods. The Odyssey is the original collection of tall traveller’s tales. Odysseus, on his way home from the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels from one-eyed giants to witches and beautiful temptresses. His adventures are many and memorable before he gets back to Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope.

We can never be certain that both these stories belonged to Homer. In fact ‘Homer’ may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps ‘the hostage’ or ‘the blind one’. Whatever the truth of their origin, the two stories, developed around three thousand years ago, may well still be read in three thousand years’ time.

First line

The war lasted so very, very long.

Media reviews

Citations

  • Outside, 10/01/2013, Page 97

About the author

Geraldine McCaughrean has written over 160 other books, including A Little Lower Than Angels, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Children's Novel Award in 1987, A Pack of Lies, which won the Guardian Prize and Carnegie Medal in 1989 and Gold Dust, which won the Beefeater Children's Novel Award in 1994. She has written retellings of notoriously tricky classics including El Cid, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Moby Dick and The Pilgrim's Progress. In 2004, she won a competition to write the sequel to J M Barrie's Peter Pan. And in 2006, Peter Pan in Scarlet was published to great acclaim.