Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It (Hardback)
  • Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It (Hardback)
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Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It (Hardback)

(author)
£25.00
Hardback 320 Pages
Published: 17/04/2025
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Did you love Madeline Miller’s Circe? Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls? Jennifer Saint's Elektra? Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships?

But did you ever wonder who the real women behind the myths of the Trojan War were?

Now award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends – and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

Because, contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it's not only men's stories that deserve to be told . . .

In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.

A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.

Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 9781529932485
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 750 g
Dimensions: 240 x 156 x 40 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

From the shadowy recesses of myth and epic poetry, step forth a host of women who once lived: mothers, daughters, wives, weavers, witches, slaves, queens and warriors. These women surface in Homer's stories, but Dr Hauser puts flesh on their bones, finding a window to the past that allows us to imagine the true depth and breadth of their experiences . . . a stirring, enlightening and fascinating exploration. - JENNIFER SAINT, bestselling author of Ariadne and Hera

Vividly brings the women of the Bronze Age to life, with a winning combination of sparkling, energetic writing and meticulous research into the archaeology of the time. - TIM WHITMARSH, Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge and author of Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World

Emily Hauser spotlights the fundamental contradiction in ancient epic: the stories rely on female protagonists but rarely put them centre stage to tell their stories in their own words. This book offers a brilliant riposte to that millennia-old dilemma . . . their stories are fascinating, enthralling and insightful – and help to recolour the world of epic for us for good! - MICHAEL SCOTT, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Warwick University and author of X Marks the Spot

A masterpiece. Emily Hauser . . . awakens in us a sense of wonder as these mythologized women come to life in stories that are woven into the fabric of Homeric poetry . . . shows us Homer in a new light: in a world inhabited by women uneclipsed by men. - GREGORY NAGY, Professor of Classics at Harvard University

‘A timely reminder of how much has been left out of traditional myth and storytelling . . . Hauser has given her readers two gifts: first, by helping us listen carefully to the details already present in ancient myths, she helps us learn to read the past better; second, by recuperating the story lives of so many famous characters, she restores fullness to our own engagement with the past. - JOEL CHRISTENSEN, Professor of Classical Studies at Brandeis University

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