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  • Published: 26 June 2003
  • ISBN: 9780140444445
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $17.99

The Iliad




'Martin Hammond's modern prose version is the best and most accurate there has ever been' - Peter Levi in the Independent

The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilisation - an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture.
The story of the Iliad centres on the critical events in the last year of the Trojan War, which lead to Achilleus' killing of Hektor and determine the fate of Troy. But Homer's theme is not simply war or heroism. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world, of human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death, set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background. The Iliad is the first of the great tragedies.

  • Published: 26 June 2003
  • ISBN: 9780140444445
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $17.99

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Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

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Praise for The Iliad

Much the best modern prose translation of the Iliad

Robin Lane Fox, Financial Times

This new prose translation of the Iliad is outstandingly good . . . to read it is to be gripped by it

Classical Review

Superbly direct and eloquent . . . by its sensitivity, fluency, and flexibility, it will win a permanent place on the shelves of Homer-lovers

Martin Fagg, Times Educational Supplement

Martin Hammond's new version is the best and most accurate there has ever been, as smooth as cream but as clear as water . . . Hammond's Iliad deserves to become a standard book

Peter Levi, Independent

Surely the best Iliad in quite a few decades

Greece & Rome Journal

Here is a fine Iliad for our times, to be read with great pleasure

Philip Howard, The Times