Among the oldest adventure stories still told, Homer's Odyssey – rendered here in prose – follows Odysseus, hero-king of Ithaca, through ten years of trial on his long voyage home from the Trojan War.
Troy has fallen, and the other Greek kings have sailed for home, but Odysseus is kept from his. His return will take as long as the war itself, ten years across the wine-dark sea, and it will cost the lives of every man who sails with him. And home, in Ithaca, has its own siege. Believing her husband dead, the faithful Penelope holds off a hall of suitors who feast on his estate and press her to choose a new king. The long voyage and the longer wait draw together toward a homecoming and a reckoning that has shaped the way stories end ever since.
Rendered into flowing English prose by the novelist Samuel Butler in 1900, this translation carries the poem's influence – felt across centuries of art, literature, and film – to readers beyond the verse tradition. Wine Dark Press is proud to present this foundational epic of Western storytelling in an edition faithful to its original source material, gathered with a selection of essays and writings on Homer and his work: the original voyage set down whole, to stand on the shelf beside the stories it inspired.