Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable
1968
Before Bulfinch, mythology belonged to scholars who could read Latin and Greek. Thomas Bulfinch spent his life translating the ancient tales into English prose so vivid that generations of readers have never needed another source. First published in 1855, this volume gathers the Greco-Roman myths that shaped Western consciousness: the court of Olympus with its quarreling gods, the Trojan War and the devastating homecoming of Odysseus, the labours of Hercules, the tragic love of Orpheus and Eurydice. Bulfinch drew on Ovid, Virgil, and Apollodorus, but his gift was rendering these stories with the urgency of folk tales told at a fireside. The result reads less like a scholarly compilation than a collection of the greatest adventure stories ever told. For nearly two centuries, this has been the book behind the book references that appear in Shakespeare, Milton, modern fantasy novels, and blockbuster films. Anyone who has ever wondered what myth lies behind the name Pandora, the Trojan Horse, or the underworld journey of Aeneas will find those answers here, told with the immediacy that made them endure for three thousand years.
