The Iliad in Prose: Homer's Greek Epic with Selected Writings

Centred on the wrath of Achilles in the final year of the siege, the original poem draws gods and mortal heroes alike, among them Hector, Agamemnon, and Odysseus, into the fighting. Homer's chronicle of the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states is the greatest war story ever told, and numbers among the most important works of Western literature.

Homer's epic was later transformed into flowing English prose by the novelist Samuel Butler in 1898, in a classic translation that opened Homer to readers beyond the verse tradition. Butler made his prose versions so that the epics could be read widely rather than studied narrowly, and his Iliad has stayed in print ever since, carrying the story forward in clear, readable language.

Wine Dark Press is proud to present this foundational epic of Western storytelling in an edition that celebrates its source material, gathered with a selection of essays and writings on Homer and his work – the original myth set down whole, to stand on the shelf beside the stories it began.