[HarryT]

I've just bought the Penguin "Deluxe Edition" of Robert Fagle's translation of Homer's "Odyssey" ($10.80 from FictionWise) and would like to recommend it to fellow MR members.

Homer's "Odyssey", as I'm sure most people are aware, is one of the cornerstones of Western Literature. Generally believed to have been composed sometime during the 8th century BC, it tells the story of the 10 year struggle of the Greek hero Odysseus to return home to Ithica following the end of the Trojan War, and the equal struggles of his faithful wife Penelope and son Telemachus at home to resist the advances of the "Suitors" who are trying to win Penelope's hand in marriage, believing Odysseus, who has been away from home for 20 years by the end of the book, to be dead. En-route Odysseus encounters the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, pays a visit to the Underworld, and has all sorts of other wonderful adventures. The Odyssey is one of the greatest "adventure" stories ever written, and almost 3,000 years after its creation, it retains its magic for the modern reader just as much as it did for the ancient world. Indeed, the very word "Odyssey" (which originally simply meant a story about Odysseus) has come into English to mean any journey filled with adventure or unexpected events.

There have been many excellent translations of the Odyssey into English over the years, but the 2002 translation by Robert Fagles, like his translation of the Iliad, is widely regarded as one of the best. It's a faithful, line for line, translation of the original Greek dactylic hexameter verse into English "blank verse" and it retains pretty much as much of the "flavour" of the Greek that it's possible to transfer into an English version.

This is one of the best eBooks I've ever encountered, taking full benefit of all the features of an eBook. Not only does one get a superb introductory essay about the Odyssey (fully linked to the appropriate passages of the poem), but the poem itself is fully annotated, with every proper name, allusion, cross-reference, etc, being linked to an extremely comprehensive end-note which throughly explains it.

The really is a case where the eBook is dramatically "better" than the paper book. I recommend it without hesitation to anyone who has the slightest interest in the subject matter.