The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid set

The DOB Hardcover Editions of The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid are collected here for the first time in a single book.The Iliad : ’The first great book, and the first great book about the suffering and loss of war’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. The Odyssey : ’The Odyssey is a poem of extraordinary pleasures: it is a salt-caked, storm-tossed, wine-dark treasury of tales, of many twists and turns, like life itself’ The epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War forms one of the earliest and greatest works of Western literature. Confronted by natural and supernatural threats - ship-wrecks, battles, monsters and the implacable enmity of the sea-god Poseidon - Odysseus must use his bravery and cunning to reach his homeland and overcome the obstacles that, even there, await him. The Aeneid : ’Rome’s greatest poet and one of the most influential writers of all time. His work, particularly the epic poem The Aeneid, has had lasting impact on the Western canon, inspiring Dante, Milton and James Joyce.’After a century of civil strife in Rome and Italy, Virgil wrote the Aeneid to honour the emperor Augustus by praising his legendary ancestor Aeneas. As a patriotic epic imitating Homer, the Aeneid also set out to provide Rome with a literature equal to that of Greece. It tells of Aeneas, survivor of the sack of Troy, and of his seven-year journey: to Carthage, where he falls tragically in love with Queen Dido; then to the underworld,; and finally to Italy, where he founds Rome. It is a story of defeat and exile, of love and war, hailed by Tennyson as ’the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man’.