The Odyssey

‘This superb translation ... feels like the original’ Richard P. Martin, Stanford University

From the acclaimed translator and author Daniel Mendelsohn, a spellbinding new verse translation of one of the greatest stories ever told, Homer's The Odyssey, bringing us closer to the original than any recent version

With his new Odyssey, author and translator Daniel Mendelsohn has created a translation to stand with the famous versions by E.V. Rieu and Robert Fagles. Mendelsohn sets aside the streamlining, modernizing approach of many recent translations, focusing instead on the epic’s formal qualities to bring the great story to life in all its archaic grandeur. This line-for-line rendering brings us closer to the poetics of the original than any other recent translations.

This is a magnificent feat of translation, one that brings to vivid life the gripping adventure, profound human insight and powerful themes that make Homer’s work continue to resonate some twenty-eight centuries after its composition. Supported by an extensive introduction, notes, and commentary, Mendelsohn’s Odyssey is poised to become the authoritative English-language version of this magnificent, endlessly enjoyable masterpiece.

‘Daniel Mendelsohn’s Odyssey is a majestic living poem, keenly responsive to the surge and subtlety of Homer’s Greek ... A momentous achievement’ Rosanna Warren, author of So Forth: Poems

‘Daniel Mendelsohn has accomplished something that no recent translator has done so well: a translation that shows a striking fidelity not only to the poem’s language and thought but also to its formal properties’ Deborah Roberts, Haverford College