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The World of Myth: An Anthology
Hercules, Zeus, Thor, Gilgamesh--these are the figures that leap to mind when we think of myth. But to David Leeming, myths are more than stories of deities and fantastic beings from non-Christian cultures. Myth is at once the most particular and the most universal feature of civilization,
representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom. Whether an Egyptian story of creation or the big-bang theory of modern physics, myth is metaphor, mirroring our deepest sense of ourselves in relation to existence itself.
Now, in The World of Myth , Leeming provides a sweeping anthology of myths, ranging from ancient Egypt and Greece to the Polynesian islands and modern science. We read stories of great floods from the ancient Babylonians, Hebrews, Chinese, and Mayans; tales of apocalypse from India, the Norse,
Christianity, and modern science; myths of the mother goddess from Native American Hopi culture and James Lovelock's Gaia . Leeming has culled myths from Aztec, Greek, African, Australian Aboriginal, Japanese, Moslem, Hittite, Celtic, Chinese, and Persian cultures, offering one of the most
wide-ranging collections of what he calls the collective dreams of humanity.
More important, he has organized these myths according to a number of themes, comparing and contrasting how various societies have addressed similar concerns, or have told similar stories. In the section on dying gods, for example, both Odin and Jesus sacrifice themselves to renew the world, each
dying on a tree. Such traditions, he proposes, may have their roots in societies of the distant past, which would ritually sacrifice their kings to renew the tribe.
In The World of Myth , David Leeming takes us on a journey "not through a maze of falsehood but through a marvellous world of metaphor," metaphor for "the story of the relationship between the known and the unknown, both around us and within us." Fantastic, tragic, bizarre, sometimes funny, the myths
he presents speak of the most fundamental human experience, a part of what Joseph Campbell called "the wonderful song of the soul's high adventure."
representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom. Whether an Egyptian story of creation or the big-bang theory of modern physics, myth is metaphor, mirroring our deepest sense of ourselves in relation to existence itself.
Now, in The World of Myth , Leeming provides a sweeping anthology of myths, ranging from ancient Egypt and Greece to the Polynesian islands and modern science. We read stories of great floods from the ancient Babylonians, Hebrews, Chinese, and Mayans; tales of apocalypse from India, the Norse,
Christianity, and modern science; myths of the mother goddess from Native American Hopi culture and James Lovelock's Gaia . Leeming has culled myths from Aztec, Greek, African, Australian Aboriginal, Japanese, Moslem, Hittite, Celtic, Chinese, and Persian cultures, offering one of the most
wide-ranging collections of what he calls the collective dreams of humanity.
More important, he has organized these myths according to a number of themes, comparing and contrasting how various societies have addressed similar concerns, or have told similar stories. In the section on dying gods, for example, both Odin and Jesus sacrifice themselves to renew the world, each
dying on a tree. Such traditions, he proposes, may have their roots in societies of the distant past, which would ritually sacrifice their kings to renew the tribe.
In The World of Myth , David Leeming takes us on a journey "not through a maze of falsehood but through a marvellous world of metaphor," metaphor for "the story of the relationship between the known and the unknown, both around us and within us." Fantastic, tragic, bizarre, sometimes funny, the myths
he presents speak of the most fundamental human experience, a part of what Joseph Campbell called "the wonderful song of the soul's high adventure."
362 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
July 13, 2015
One of the criticisms I've read of this book is that it hammers you over the head with a single interpretation, the Joseph Campbell approach. While that's certainly true, I think it's still usable as a classroom text (which is why I'm reading it). I've done enough background reading on interpretations of mythology to be able to upset the dynamic of the book a little. My students won't read it cover-to-cover, for example. They'll read it in an entirely different order, and after having read Ovid's Metamorphoses and Crossley-Holland's Norse Myths in almost their entirety. So there are ways to use it that don't force you to take Leeming's interpretation as the sole way to interpret myth.
The other criticism I've read of this book is that it's dull and text-book like. Well, there's not much to say to that. It is a textbook, after all (and, I may say, a relatively cheap textbook). And although I'd generally rather read original sources than retellings, retellings of mythology tend to be much more reader-friendly than original sources. That might account for why some readers find this text boring: it's mainly original texts.
Its advantage is that, for a relatively low price, you get quite a diversity of tales--both tale types and cultures represented. Again, it's true that some cultures are under-represented, but that's really inevitable in such a text. Greek mythology has informed our own culture like no other, and therefore ought to receive pride of place. If I have a regret about it at all, it's that Norse and Celtic mythology are under-represented, and that's why I've also set my students Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Norse Myths and The Mabinogion, trans. Sioned Davies.
The other criticism I've read of this book is that it's dull and text-book like. Well, there's not much to say to that. It is a textbook, after all (and, I may say, a relatively cheap textbook). And although I'd generally rather read original sources than retellings, retellings of mythology tend to be much more reader-friendly than original sources. That might account for why some readers find this text boring: it's mainly original texts.
Its advantage is that, for a relatively low price, you get quite a diversity of tales--both tale types and cultures represented. Again, it's true that some cultures are under-represented, but that's really inevitable in such a text. Greek mythology has informed our own culture like no other, and therefore ought to receive pride of place. If I have a regret about it at all, it's that Norse and Celtic mythology are under-represented, and that's why I've also set my students Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Norse Myths and The Mabinogion, trans. Sioned Davies.
Read
December 4, 2024I just want to make this clear, but I read this for school! I would never pick up this book for fun. I'm counting this towards my goal because we read the whole thing and I said so...
January 16, 2022
Fine collection and organization of representative myths from multiple traditions, but old translations and scant commentaries and footnotes keep this from being what it could be.
On the plus side, this text introduced me to the Persian myth of Mithra. Leeming cites Barbara Walker in explaining how this myth influenced Christianity until the fourth century C.E. She claims that according to the legends, Mithra... 1) was born on the 25th of December, 2) had his birth witnessed by shepherds and magi, 3) raised the dead, healed the sick, and cast out devils, 4) ascended into heaven, which was celebrated at the spring equinox, 5) celebrated a last supper with his twelve disciples.... And the similarities go on. Why had I never heard of this prior to chancing upon it in this text?
This text also deepened my exposure to and understanding of the Celtic Fisher King (or Sinner King) myth as well as the Greek story of Nemesis.
Worth the effort.
On the plus side, this text introduced me to the Persian myth of Mithra. Leeming cites Barbara Walker in explaining how this myth influenced Christianity until the fourth century C.E. She claims that according to the legends, Mithra... 1) was born on the 25th of December, 2) had his birth witnessed by shepherds and magi, 3) raised the dead, healed the sick, and cast out devils, 4) ascended into heaven, which was celebrated at the spring equinox, 5) celebrated a last supper with his twelve disciples.... And the similarities go on. Why had I never heard of this prior to chancing upon it in this text?
This text also deepened my exposure to and understanding of the Celtic Fisher King (or Sinner King) myth as well as the Greek story of Nemesis.
Worth the effort.
October 17, 2008
Great breakdown of the larger trends in mythology from a fairly global perspective. Of course, I notice that more time is devoted to Greece than to, say, the southern tip of Africa, but that's hard to get around in this field. Too, I notice more time is spent on gods rather than goddesses, but it's not excessive. Overall the focus is pretty even, the summaries are great, and the ratio of summaries to primary text is well balanced. Most importantly for my own work, it touches on the origins of various gods, where they were born, who they were before we got to know them. In other words, this book offers a terrific "big picture" from which to jump into further study. Thanks for lending it to me, Rose.
June 18, 2008
a really good anthology of myths and folklore from around the world...special emphasis is placed on non-greco-roman stories and figures...lots of native american and pre-columbian references...
the only complaint i have is the lack of helpful explication in connection to the texts...he throws the stories at you and pretty much lets you go it alone from there...some of the narratives are deeply idio-symbolic and mired in cultural allusion that cannot be deciphered in isolation...
there are introductory statements at the beginning of each section, the myths are categorized by type, but they're not very detailed...
a good resource for translation of mythic obscurities, but that's about it...
the only complaint i have is the lack of helpful explication in connection to the texts...he throws the stories at you and pretty much lets you go it alone from there...some of the narratives are deeply idio-symbolic and mired in cultural allusion that cannot be deciphered in isolation...
there are introductory statements at the beginning of each section, the myths are categorized by type, but they're not very detailed...
a good resource for translation of mythic obscurities, but that's about it...
September 12, 2020
This book is a thematic study and anthology of world literature that discusses the major themes and provides multiple examples (from different cultures) in a clear and structured format. It is rich in content and packed with information. Sadly, it is rather limited in scope, since the author tends to stick with the more traditional hypotheses in the study of mythology. Nevertheless, one of its greatest strengths lies in it being religiously unbiased.
I felt that the book's final chapter was rushed. For instance, the parts about forests, caves, and labyrinths were too scanty.
I felt that the book's final chapter was rushed. For instance, the parts about forests, caves, and labyrinths were too scanty.
July 14, 2025
Read for class
This was a nice little bindup introduction to mythology, the different types of myths, and different origins of some popular myths
I liked how everything was split up and organized in this book, but I did wish it went into deeper details about some of the myths
This was a nice little bindup introduction to mythology, the different types of myths, and different origins of some popular myths
I liked how everything was split up and organized in this book, but I did wish it went into deeper details about some of the myths
January 20, 2026
Mission 2026: Binge reviewing all previous Reads, I was too slothful to review back when I read them
David A. Leeming’s 'The World of Myth: An Anthology' is not a book one reads straight through so much as one lives with, returns to, and gradually absorbs. It functions less like a narrative and more like a mythic landscape, a terrain across which stories, symbols, and archetypes echo and refract one another across cultures and centuries.
Reading it after years of engaging with individual mythological traditions, I felt a quiet satisfaction in seeing them placed side by side without being flattened into sameness. Leeming’s great achievement here is balance: between scholarship and accessibility, comparison and respect for difference, pattern and particularity.
This anthology does not pretend to offer a complete map of world mythology. Instead, it offers something more honest and more useful: a curated encounter. Myths from Mesopotamia, Greece, India, the Norse world, Africa, the Americas, East Asia, and Oceania are presented not as museum artifacts but as living texts that once structured how people understood time, death, love, violence, nature, and the divine.
Leeming’s editorial hand is present but restrained. He frames, contextualizes, and occasionally interprets, but he does not suffocate the myths with explanation. The stories are allowed to breathe.
What struck me immediately was the anthology’s pedagogical intelligence. Leeming understands that myth is best encountered directly, not summarized into themes before one has felt its texture. Each section begins with just enough guidance to orient the reader: historical background, cosmological assumptions, key symbolic concerns. Then the myths themselves take over. Creation stories, flood myths, trickster tales, heroic cycles, descent narratives, and apocalyptic visions unfold with a clarity that reminds us how structurally sophisticated these ancient narratives often are. Long before the novel or the modern play, myth had already mastered pacing, irony, repetition, and emotional escalation.
Reading the creation myths back to back was particularly illuminating. The Enuma Elish, Genesis, the Rig Vedic hymns, and Indigenous emergence stories do not simply answer the question of origins. They encode attitudes toward power, hierarchy, gender, and violence. Some worlds begin in harmony, others in conflict. Some are spoken into being, others torn from chaos through bloodshed. Leeming does not force interpretation, but the juxtaposition itself invites reflection. One begins to see how cosmology and social order mirror one another, how the story of the universe legitimizes the story of the tribe.
The anthology is especially strong in its treatment of non-Western and Indigenous mythologies. While no anthology can entirely escape the risk of compression, Leeming avoids exoticism and romanticization. Myths from Africa, the Americas, and Oceania are not presented as primitive curiosities but as complex symbolic systems with their own internal logic. Trickster figures like Anansi or Coyote emerge not as comic relief but as destabilizing forces that question order itself. Reading these stories alongside Greek or Norse myths reveals not hierarchy but conversation. Different cultures wrestle with the same existential pressures using different symbolic grammars.
One of the quiet pleasures of the book is its attention to mythic voice. These stories were originally oral, performative, communal. On the page, that immediacy is hard to preserve, yet many selections retain a rhythmic directness that suggests spoken origins. Repetition, formulaic phrasing, and ritualized dialogue appear not as stylistic flaws but as mnemonic and ceremonial devices. Reading them aloud, even silently, one can sense how myth once functioned not merely as entertainment but as enactment.
Leeming’s introductory essays, scattered throughout the volume, reveal his intellectual lineage without becoming doctrinaire. One can feel the influence of thinkers like Jung, Eliade, and Campbell, but Leeming is less interested in universalizing myths into a single pattern than in showing how certain concerns recur under different symbolic guises. Death, transformation, sacrifice, initiation, and return appear again and again, but never in exactly the same form. This refusal to collapse difference is crucial. Myth here is comparative, not homogenized.
The sections on hero myths are especially revealing when read comparatively. Gilgamesh, Heracles, Rama, Odysseus, and various Indigenous heroes all undertake journeys that test strength, loyalty, and moral vision. Yet the outcomes differ. Some heroes return wiser; others return broken; some do not return at all. Heroism, the anthology quietly suggests, is not a fixed ideal but a culturally contingent negotiation between individual desire and communal need. This is an important corrective to simplified readings of the hero’s journey as a single universal script.
Equally compelling are the myths of descent. Stories of gods and mortals entering the underworld, whether Inanna, Orpheus, Izanagi, or Persephone, pulse with psychological and ritual significance. They confront loss, irreversibility, and the limits of power. Reading these myths together, I felt how deeply human the need is to imagine a return from death, or at least a dialogue with it. Leeming allows these myths to resonate without forcing modern psychological allegory upon them, though the implications are unmistakable.
The anthology also does important work in reminding the reader that myth is not always comforting. Many of these stories are violent, cruel, and morally unsettling. Gods deceive, punish arbitrarily, demand sacrifice, and display terrifying indifference to human suffering. Leeming does not sanitize this. Myth here is not therapy; it is confrontation. It reflects a world in which meaning was wrested from chaos, not assumed. Reading these darker myths now, one senses how modern discomfort with ambiguity and cruelty often leads to shallow reinterpretations. This book resists that temptation.
If the anthology has a limitation, it lies in what all anthologies must sacrifice: depth for breadth. A single myth excerpt can never fully convey the ritual, artistic, and social contexts in which it originally functioned. Some traditions inevitably receive less space than they deserve. Yet Leeming is transparent about this constraint, and his selections are judicious. The book invites further reading rather than pretending to replace it.
What makes 'The World of Myth' especially valuable today is its quiet argument against cultural amnesia. In a world dominated by data, immediacy, and fragmented attention, myth offers long memory. It reminds us that humans have always struggled with the same questions: why we suffer, how we belong, what we owe the dead, and how we imagine the sacred. These myths do not provide answers in any modern sense, but they provide orientation. They teach us how earlier cultures learned to live with uncertainty rather than eliminate it.
Reading this anthology felt less like an academic exercise and more like an initiation into a shared human inheritance. Leeming does not ask the reader to believe these myths literally, nor to treat them as mere literary artifacts. He invites a third posture: attentive participation. To read myth well is to allow it to work on the imagination, to loosen the grip of literalism without collapsing into cynicism.
In the end, 'The World of Myth: An Anthology' succeeds because it respects both myth and reader. It assumes intelligence without demanding prior expertise. It offers structure without closure. It reminds us that before philosophy, before science, before history, there was story, and that those stories still shape us whether we acknowledge them or not. For students, teachers, and solitary readers alike, this is not just a reference book but a companion, one that rewards slow reading and repeated return.
Most recommended
David A. Leeming’s 'The World of Myth: An Anthology' is not a book one reads straight through so much as one lives with, returns to, and gradually absorbs. It functions less like a narrative and more like a mythic landscape, a terrain across which stories, symbols, and archetypes echo and refract one another across cultures and centuries.
Reading it after years of engaging with individual mythological traditions, I felt a quiet satisfaction in seeing them placed side by side without being flattened into sameness. Leeming’s great achievement here is balance: between scholarship and accessibility, comparison and respect for difference, pattern and particularity.
This anthology does not pretend to offer a complete map of world mythology. Instead, it offers something more honest and more useful: a curated encounter. Myths from Mesopotamia, Greece, India, the Norse world, Africa, the Americas, East Asia, and Oceania are presented not as museum artifacts but as living texts that once structured how people understood time, death, love, violence, nature, and the divine.
Leeming’s editorial hand is present but restrained. He frames, contextualizes, and occasionally interprets, but he does not suffocate the myths with explanation. The stories are allowed to breathe.
What struck me immediately was the anthology’s pedagogical intelligence. Leeming understands that myth is best encountered directly, not summarized into themes before one has felt its texture. Each section begins with just enough guidance to orient the reader: historical background, cosmological assumptions, key symbolic concerns. Then the myths themselves take over. Creation stories, flood myths, trickster tales, heroic cycles, descent narratives, and apocalyptic visions unfold with a clarity that reminds us how structurally sophisticated these ancient narratives often are. Long before the novel or the modern play, myth had already mastered pacing, irony, repetition, and emotional escalation.
Reading the creation myths back to back was particularly illuminating. The Enuma Elish, Genesis, the Rig Vedic hymns, and Indigenous emergence stories do not simply answer the question of origins. They encode attitudes toward power, hierarchy, gender, and violence. Some worlds begin in harmony, others in conflict. Some are spoken into being, others torn from chaos through bloodshed. Leeming does not force interpretation, but the juxtaposition itself invites reflection. One begins to see how cosmology and social order mirror one another, how the story of the universe legitimizes the story of the tribe.
The anthology is especially strong in its treatment of non-Western and Indigenous mythologies. While no anthology can entirely escape the risk of compression, Leeming avoids exoticism and romanticization. Myths from Africa, the Americas, and Oceania are not presented as primitive curiosities but as complex symbolic systems with their own internal logic. Trickster figures like Anansi or Coyote emerge not as comic relief but as destabilizing forces that question order itself. Reading these stories alongside Greek or Norse myths reveals not hierarchy but conversation. Different cultures wrestle with the same existential pressures using different symbolic grammars.
One of the quiet pleasures of the book is its attention to mythic voice. These stories were originally oral, performative, communal. On the page, that immediacy is hard to preserve, yet many selections retain a rhythmic directness that suggests spoken origins. Repetition, formulaic phrasing, and ritualized dialogue appear not as stylistic flaws but as mnemonic and ceremonial devices. Reading them aloud, even silently, one can sense how myth once functioned not merely as entertainment but as enactment.
Leeming’s introductory essays, scattered throughout the volume, reveal his intellectual lineage without becoming doctrinaire. One can feel the influence of thinkers like Jung, Eliade, and Campbell, but Leeming is less interested in universalizing myths into a single pattern than in showing how certain concerns recur under different symbolic guises. Death, transformation, sacrifice, initiation, and return appear again and again, but never in exactly the same form. This refusal to collapse difference is crucial. Myth here is comparative, not homogenized.
The sections on hero myths are especially revealing when read comparatively. Gilgamesh, Heracles, Rama, Odysseus, and various Indigenous heroes all undertake journeys that test strength, loyalty, and moral vision. Yet the outcomes differ. Some heroes return wiser; others return broken; some do not return at all. Heroism, the anthology quietly suggests, is not a fixed ideal but a culturally contingent negotiation between individual desire and communal need. This is an important corrective to simplified readings of the hero’s journey as a single universal script.
Equally compelling are the myths of descent. Stories of gods and mortals entering the underworld, whether Inanna, Orpheus, Izanagi, or Persephone, pulse with psychological and ritual significance. They confront loss, irreversibility, and the limits of power. Reading these myths together, I felt how deeply human the need is to imagine a return from death, or at least a dialogue with it. Leeming allows these myths to resonate without forcing modern psychological allegory upon them, though the implications are unmistakable.
The anthology also does important work in reminding the reader that myth is not always comforting. Many of these stories are violent, cruel, and morally unsettling. Gods deceive, punish arbitrarily, demand sacrifice, and display terrifying indifference to human suffering. Leeming does not sanitize this. Myth here is not therapy; it is confrontation. It reflects a world in which meaning was wrested from chaos, not assumed. Reading these darker myths now, one senses how modern discomfort with ambiguity and cruelty often leads to shallow reinterpretations. This book resists that temptation.
If the anthology has a limitation, it lies in what all anthologies must sacrifice: depth for breadth. A single myth excerpt can never fully convey the ritual, artistic, and social contexts in which it originally functioned. Some traditions inevitably receive less space than they deserve. Yet Leeming is transparent about this constraint, and his selections are judicious. The book invites further reading rather than pretending to replace it.
What makes 'The World of Myth' especially valuable today is its quiet argument against cultural amnesia. In a world dominated by data, immediacy, and fragmented attention, myth offers long memory. It reminds us that humans have always struggled with the same questions: why we suffer, how we belong, what we owe the dead, and how we imagine the sacred. These myths do not provide answers in any modern sense, but they provide orientation. They teach us how earlier cultures learned to live with uncertainty rather than eliminate it.
Reading this anthology felt less like an academic exercise and more like an initiation into a shared human inheritance. Leeming does not ask the reader to believe these myths literally, nor to treat them as mere literary artifacts. He invites a third posture: attentive participation. To read myth well is to allow it to work on the imagination, to loosen the grip of literalism without collapsing into cynicism.
In the end, 'The World of Myth: An Anthology' succeeds because it respects both myth and reader. It assumes intelligence without demanding prior expertise. It offers structure without closure. It reminds us that before philosophy, before science, before history, there was story, and that those stories still shape us whether we acknowledge them or not. For students, teachers, and solitary readers alike, this is not just a reference book but a companion, one that rewards slow reading and repeated return.
Most recommended
June 20, 2020
It claims to be an anthology, but most of the selections are rewritten or interpretations of scholars just summarizing a myth. It makes it easier for the reader to understand, surely, but it takes away any ability to interpret the material on your own. The largest selections were from the Old Testament and Ovid, while lesser-known myths had only a paragraph story summary. An exception to that is that Jesus is alluded to throughout, but no actual presentation of him is in the selections other than summary. Grouping ten different cultural myths by subject, most with a page or less, in order to compare them seems interesting, but there's not a lot to work with.
The other problem I saw is that the only hermeneutic the author used was that of Jungian archetypes, mostly used to compare cultures by their being either patriarchal or matriarchal. Would this be of note? Certainly, but as an anthology book for Mythology 101 I think it narrows down all of human culture to one or fewer factors. Looking into the author's CV, it seems he has an interest in the "great goddess/earth mother" archetype, so that solves that particular question.
It's not opening up myths to be discovered/explored, but rather a limiting factor on exploration. I suppose this is a problem with most textbooks, though.
The other problem I saw is that the only hermeneutic the author used was that of Jungian archetypes, mostly used to compare cultures by their being either patriarchal or matriarchal. Would this be of note? Certainly, but as an anthology book for Mythology 101 I think it narrows down all of human culture to one or fewer factors. Looking into the author's CV, it seems he has an interest in the "great goddess/earth mother" archetype, so that solves that particular question.
It's not opening up myths to be discovered/explored, but rather a limiting factor on exploration. I suppose this is a problem with most textbooks, though.
August 29, 2015
Well I liked it. It was very helpful for my research.
May 17, 2024
I got this book for a college class I am taking. I feel that in the readings, the author is very biased against the Bible. Instead of suggesting things might be linked, he states " we find a flood story that is clearly the source for the Old Testament Noah story." He was stating that some Mesopotamia flood myth was the source of Noah's Ark story in the Bible. I find it disrespectful, as it is supposed to be learning/teaching about different myths. NOT disproving or disrespecting someone's religion/religious text. There is a better way to make the similarities known without being biased against the Bible. I will not read another one of his books, as he does this repeatedly stating "this is CLEARLY the source of this story in the Bible" instead of suggesting it could be. VERY UNPROFESSIONAL.
November 2, 2023
“The reason is not to be told. Do not ask me to disclose it. The seed of woe and the fruit of wisdom are enclosed within this secret. It is the secret that smites with an ax the tree of worldly vanity, hews away its roots, and scatters its crown. This secret is a lamp to those groping in ignorance. This secret lies buried in the wisdom of the ages, and is rarely revealed even to saints. This secret is the living air of those ascetics who renounce and transcend mortal existence; but worldlings, deluded by desire and pride, it destroys.”
October 9, 2017
It's a good book for readers who would like to view the variations in the world in many aspects for instance, beliefs. Because I'm not interested in myths across cultures and religions, I have found it a funny book! And I'm sorry!
March 20, 2019
it's so deliciously fantastic. read it in college for mythology class and i'm revisiting. couldn't be happier. plus! keith is air and i'm water, which makes perfect sense! say thankya allah, er brahmā, or gaia, or whatever...
April 27, 2025
I read this for Comparative Mythology in Spring ‘25.
A really cool book on world myth that provided alternate perspectives on myths when read in tandem with Ovid’s Metamorphoses (same class). Very cool.
A really cool book on world myth that provided alternate perspectives on myths when read in tandem with Ovid’s Metamorphoses (same class). Very cool.
Read
August 27, 2020Read for school
January 20, 2021
A wonderful reference book
August 9, 2021
Read this for a World Mythologies class. Very interesting. Recommend pairing it with discussions or critical thinking written assignments.
April 12, 2022
This was a textbook for my World Mythologies class and I ended up keeping it from my university and annotating it.
October 2, 2022
Love reading the stories, especially stories in original format. Although, I was doubtful some of the facts were accurate.
September 18, 2023
Interesting read but I’d like to see more diversity in approach when reading an anthology. Still helpful in my research.
December 8, 2023
Useful anthology for classroom use, though some of the translations need updating. Desperately. The editor's own introductions are often thoughtful, but also often decline into Campbell-like analysis, which certainly dates the work.
November 26, 2025
I tried to read this book when I was 13 and remember it being horrendously dull. Maybe I would like it better now, who knows.
April 28, 2025
4/5 Stars (%76/100)
David A. Leeming’s The World of Myth is an accessible and thoughtfully organized exploration of myths from cultures around the globe, highlighting common themes like creation, heroism, and the quest for meaning. Leeming’s clear prose and comparative approach make complex ideas easy to grasp without oversimplifying their richness. Though some sections could go deeper into individual traditions, the book’s broad scope, clarity, and genuine appreciation for the power of myth make it a highly rewarding and insightful read. Recommended!
David A. Leeming’s The World of Myth is an accessible and thoughtfully organized exploration of myths from cultures around the globe, highlighting common themes like creation, heroism, and the quest for meaning. Leeming’s clear prose and comparative approach make complex ideas easy to grasp without oversimplifying their richness. Though some sections could go deeper into individual traditions, the book’s broad scope, clarity, and genuine appreciation for the power of myth make it a highly rewarding and insightful read. Recommended!
February 28, 2009
I've been teaching this class for the better part of a year. I figured it was time I actually read the book from cover to cover. Eh. It has some cool myths that I haven't frequently seen in other texts, but the critical essays before each section aren't really anything new. Still, it's good to get it all highlighted and underlined and such for faster reference in future classes.
November 26, 2007
I read parts of this in my Approaches to Literature class, I think it was. I believe I later when back and read the whole thing as reading for my senior honor thesis. I was looking for myths that connected to my topic, but didn't find any.
April 26, 2013
Great introduction to mythology. The topical explanations are clear and precise. The myths used are all familiar so it's a cinch to make connections. If you're trying to get your feet wet without some of the more cumbersome reads on mythology, then I highly recommend this one.
April 17, 2015
Many mythic traditions were omitted. Many were just cursorily mentioned. Too much emphasis on Jung. The most annoying thing...? The author repeatedly cited himself and his own works. Ego trip anyone? Could have been much better.
September 25, 2018
Surprisingly, I enjoyed reading this. So many fantastic myths to read about. I had to read this-over a semester-for a class. I fell in love with mythology and this book was unlike any textbook I had ever read.
February 21, 2012
This book is a good intro to mythology. However, most of the myths were either Greek or from the Bible. It needs to be more diverse.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews