Introduction by Dan-el Padilla Peralta
A book for middle-grade readers and older that makes the Trojan War vivid and accessible.
The ancient city of Troy really existed. The Trojan War that figures in Homer’s two great epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, really happened. But there is much more to it.
Leave it to one of the English language’s greatest practitioners, Robert Graves, to flesh out the story in a very short book for children, first published in 1962, and out of print for more than three decades. According to Graves, “English literature, to be properly understood, calls for as close a knowledge of the Trojan War as of the Bible: Helen’s beauty, Odysseus’s cunning, Hector’s noble courage, Achilles’s vulnerable heel, Ajax’s madness, Agamemnon’s murder, have all become proverbial. Yet The Siege and Fall of Troy is perhaps the first modern attempt to make the whole story, from the foundation of Troy to the return of the victorious Greeks, into a single short book for boys and girls.”
Two-thirds of Graves’s account originates with ancient Greek and Latin authors other than Homer, in fact. The ancient city of Troy was sacked sometime early in the twelfth century BC; The Iliad and The Odyssey were composed some four or five centuries later. They followed earlier accounts and drew from them. Mostly, the various accounts agree with one another, and since most were originally performed at royal courts, the exploits of the royal-born feature in them all.
Graves’s style is sleek and to the point. The speech of the protagonists is direct and kids will relate to it. The story is told with verve and clarity. Since this is one of the greatest stories of all time, it doesn’t need dressing up. The new Seven Stories edition will be elegantly designed and produced, an heirloom for future generations:
“That night, Agamemnon could not sleep. He got up, armed himself and went in search of his brother Menelaus. ‘What we need,’ he told Menelaus, ‘is a really clever scheme for saving our army and our fleet. . .’” (from The Siege and Fall of Troy by Robert Graves)
Pre-order from Powell's here.
Announcing the Robert Graves Project
Today marks the publication day for Robert Graves and Alan Hodge's The Reader Over Your Shoulder, which grammarian extraordinaire Patricia T. O'Conner, author of Woe is I, calls "the best book on writing ever published." The Reader Over Your Shoulder is not just a writing handbook. It is a witty and engaging treatise on the pleasures and pains of the English language itself, with witty criticisms of Graves's contemporaries, including Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and H. G. Wells.
The Reader Over Your Shoulder is only the first of fourteen works from the eccentric, downright polymathic mind of Robert Graves. An esteemed poet, a bestselling author of the historical novel I, Claudius, Graves wrote also wrote a diverse set of novels, books on mythology, and children's tales. Seven Stories is excited to introduce these works back into the reading public. Check out the Graves books so far scheduled for publication here, and check out the full list of forthcoming titles here.
Robert Graves (1895–1985) was a preeminent English poet, novelist, critic, translator, and scholar of classical mythology. He served in World War I—an experience recounted in his 1929 autobiography, Good-Bye to All That—and later became the first professor of English literature at the University of Cairo. Best remembered today for his acclaimed historical novels about the Roman emperor Claudius, I, Claudius and Claudius the God, his other books include Count Belisarius, Lawrence and the Arabs, They Hanged My Saintly Billy, Homer's Daughter, The Golden Fleece, The Siege and Fall of Troy, Ann at Highwood Hall, The White Goddess, The Hebrew Myths, and Collected Poems. He is also the co-author of The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose.
