The Odyssey (Hardcover Library Edition)

The great epic of Western literature. Ten years after the Trojan War and the Fall of Troy, Odysseus, one of the war heroes, has still not returned to his kingdom, Ithaca. Assumed to be dead, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors who have overrun Odysseus’ palace and ransacked his land, competing for Penelope’s hand in marriage. But Odysseus is still alive; imprisoned on the island of Ogygia by Calypso, who is possessed by love for him and desires to make him her immortal husband. How will Odysseus return home? Will he reunite with his loving Penelope? Expounding Homer’s energetic vision of everyman’s journey through life, the Odyssey recounts the tale of Odysseus’ ‘nostos’—journey back home. the second oldest extant work of Western literature, it is an evocation of Homer’s grandiloquent revival of myths and legends narrated in this rare classic. Nearly three thousand years after its composition, the Odyssey still remains one of the most celebrated and widely read stories ever told.