Description

‘The first great book, and the first great book about the suffering and loss of war’ Guardian

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer’s Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its centre is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, who refuses to fight after being humiliated by his leader Agamemnon. But when the Trojan Hector kills Achilles’ close friend Patroclus, he storms back into battle to take revenge – knowing this will ensure his own early death. E. V. Rieu’s acclaimed translation of The Iliad was one of the first titles published in Penguin Classics, and now has classic status itself.

Originally translated by E. V. RIEU
Revised and updated by PETER JONES with D. C. H. RIEU
Edited with an Introduction and notes by PETER JONES

Publisher Review

"Fitzgerald has solved virtually every problem that has plagued translators of Homer. The narrative runs, the dialogue speaks, the military action is clear, and the repetitive epithets become useful text rather than exotic relics." -Atlantic Monthly "Fitzgerald's swift rhythms, bright images, and superb English make Homer live as never before...This is for every reader in our time and possibly for all time."-Library Journal "[Fitzgerald's Odyssey and Iliad] open up once more the unique greatness of Homer's art at the level above the formula; yet at the same time they do not neglect the brilliant texture of Homeric verse at the level of the line and the phrase." -The Yale Review "What an age can read in Homer, what its translators can manage to say in his presence, is one gauge of its morale, one index to its system of exultations and reticences. The supple, the iridescent, the ironic, these modes are among our strengths, and among Mr. Fitzgerald's." -National Review With an Introduction by Gregory Nagy