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The Odyssey
One war, ten years lost at sea, and several gods with grudges.
Homer · myth · 1 on Boovie
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
A bored girl follows a rabbit into a world where eating cake changes your height and logic is optional.
Lewis Carroll · novel · 1 on Boovie
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The Mabinogion
A giant king crosses a sea on foot while his sister’s wedding feast is ruined by a very angry brother.
Charlotte Lady Schreiber · myth
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Four Arthurian Romances
Knights errant, runaway sparrow-hawks, and swords for bridges: the standard operating procedure for Arthur's table.
de Troyes active 12th century Chrétien · collection
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The Frogs
Dionysus goes to the Underworld to rescue a poet, but the candidates won't stop bickering.
Aristophanes · play
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Orlando Furioso
A paladin goes mad, a hippogriff visits the moon, and two lovers fight fate to start an Italian dynasty.
Lodovico Ariosto · myth
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Andersen's Fairy Tales
A Flea competes for a princess’s hand, a tree regrets growing up, and two rogues weave a suit of nothing.
H. C. Andersen · collection
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The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism
A young philosopher argues the Greeks were only beautiful because they were profoundly miserable.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche · history
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The Iliad
A king steals a hero’s girl, a hero sulks in his tent, and Troy pays the price in blood.
Homer · myth
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The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem
A Portuguese explorer braves unmapped oceans, jealous gods, and hostile merchants to trade pepper for national glory.
Luís de Camões · myth
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Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales
A prince brings a rose, a princess brings a pea, and everyone is vaguely dissatisfied.
H. C. Andersen · collection
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Grimm's Fairy Stories
A king blows feathers into the wind to pick an heir while a soldier negotiates a living bear-skin suit.
Jacob Grimm · collection
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King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
A boy pulls a sword from a stone, founds an elite fellowship, and watches it crumble through betrayal and magic.
Thomas Sir -1471 Malory · myth
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Oedipus King of Thebes
Thebes is dying of plague, and King Oedipus hunts the murderer to end it.
Sophocles · play
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Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem
A monster terrorizes a royal mead-hall for twelve years; a visitor from across the sea decides to fix it.
J. Lesslie Hall · myth
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Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Complete
A poet walks through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; he sees exactly what you might expect.
Dante Alighieri · myth
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The Nibelungenlied
Siegfried fights dragons, wins a queen, and ruins everything for his in-laws.
G. H. Needler · Myth
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The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost'
A Victorian doctor examines how John Milton built a universe using both ancient myths and the latest telescope discoveries.
Thomas Nathaniel Orchard · history
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Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
A statesman and his friend debate whether virtue can actually outrun a really bad week.
Marcus Tullius Cicero · Expository Philosophy
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The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga); with Excerpts from the Poetic Edda
A family tree grows around a divine sword, but its branches eventually buckle under the weight of cursed dragon treasure.
Eiríkr Magnússon · myth
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Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica
A farmer explains the weather, gods fight for their lives, and the missing chapters of the Trojan War finally appear.
Hesiod · poetry
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Critias
A philosopher describes a perfect prehistoric Athens and the wealthy island empire that collapsed after losing its divine spark.
Plato · dialogue
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The Fables of La Fontaine
The wolf is hungry, the fox is lying, and the ant is busy judging everyone.
Jean de La Fontaine · Poetry
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Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
A courtier decodes the secrets of power, the anatomy of anger, and the hidden political manuals buried inside ancient Greek myths.
Francis Bacon · collection
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The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII
Gods pursue nymphs, heroes sail for gold, and humans turn into trees, birds, or stars at the slightest divine whim.
Ovid · poetry
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Le Morte Darthur
One king, a round table, and a collection of knights who mostly just hit each other.
Thomas Sir -1471 Malory · Myth
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The House of Atreus; Being the Agamemnon, the Libation bearers, and the Furies
A king returns from war to a murderous wife, starting a cycle of family killings that only a trial can end.
Aeschylus · collection
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The Authoress of the Odyssey
An amateur sleuth scans the Odyssey for clues that Homer was actually a woman.
Samuel Butler · ideas
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The Birds
Two men leave Athens to start a city in the clouds. Birds take over.
Aristophanes · play
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The Agamemnon of Aeschylus
A king returns from ten years of war to find his welcome mat is a death trap.
Aeschylus · play
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The Seven Plays in English Verse
A king discovers his parentage, a sister breaks the law, and gods never stop watching.
Sophocles · collection
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The Argonautica
A king fears a one-sandaled man, so he sends fifty heroes on a boat toward a very dangerous sheepskin.
Rhodius Apollonius · poetry
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The Aeneid
A survivor flees a burning city, survives a goddess's grudge, and finally finds a place to land.
Virgil · myth
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Medea of Euripides
Jason leaves his wife for a princess, failing to anticipate her rather extreme plan for alimony.
Euripides · Play
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The Song of Roland
A king spends seven years conquering Spain, but his rear guard loses everything in an afternoon.
C. K. Scott-Moncrieff · myth
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The Epic of Gilgamish
A prehistoric king dreams of falling stars while a wild satyr learns that beer and bread are the keys to civilization.
Stephen Langdon · myth
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The Story of Beowulf, Translated from Anglo-Saxon into Modern English Prose
The Danish king has a pest problem in his living room, and a Geat offers to handle it.
Ernest J. B. Kirtlan · novel
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The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
Ten stories where the woods are dangerous, the cats are devious, and magic rarely simplifies anything.
Charles Perrault · collection
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Twenty-Two Goblins
A king must carry a talkative goblin across a cemetery without speaking, or risk his head literally exploding.
Arthur W. Ryder · myth
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Three hundred Aesop’s fables
A frog gets pelted with stones and points out the obvious to the neighborhood children.
Aesop · collection
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An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
Two ancient tablets surface, and a pair of academics spend decades arguing about the translation.
Morris Jastrow · myth
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The Golden Asse
A man obsessed with sorcery accidentally transforms into a donkey. Staying that way is harder.
Apuleius · novel
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Fairy dreams
A prince kneels, a hermit chats with ospreys, and the frost paints pictures on a bedroom window.
Jane G. Austin · collection
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Aesop's Fables; a new translation
A goose dies for greed, a hare loses a race, and a lion explains exactly how partnership works for kings.
Aesop · collection
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Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions
The author finds the Bible's best stories already had previous, more ancient owners.
history
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Cornish Characters and Strange Events
A midshipman edits Nelson's grammar, a pewterer defends a farmhouse with gunfire, and a botanist flees a bad marriage for moss.
collection
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Myths of the Cherokee
A nation is driven from its mountains, yet their stories persist across the Mississippi.
Science
Also on YouTube
- The beggar at the swineherd's hearth | The OdysseyWatch on YouTube