Who's Who in Mythology

by Alexander Stuart Murray

Extensive and colourful mythologies of gods, heroes, places, and natural phenomena are hallmarks of all great ancient civilizations. Lacking our rational understandings of the laws of nature, early peoples throughout the world created and relied on a vast array of myth to explain the perplexing and sometimes terrifying event with which they were confronted.Alexander Murray begins this fascinating guide to well-known mythological figures with an account of the creation of the world out of 'a great shapeless mass'. According to classical mythology, from this chaos fashioned the first basic elements of love, earth, sea, sky, night, and day. The twelve Olympian gods, the highest order of gods, sat high above this creation and ruled the world through whim and caprice.Including many major mythical figures from classical, European, Eastern and Egyptian mythology, this comprehensive book is an invaluable illustrated reference work to the great myths that continue to intrigue readers to this day.

Genres: Mythology, History, Religion, Nonfiction, Reference

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1874

About the author

Alexander Stuart Murray, FBA (1841 - 1904) was a Scottish archaeologist. He was known for excavations on Cyprus.

Reviews

[Jason X · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not read this cover to cover. I did read many of the articles. I liked the art work and photographs the best. The coverage is comprehensive but not deep, so this is a good reference book. The descriptions of the gods and their stories were Wikipediaesque summaries. I thought the writing was just okay. If you want more depth or drama from the stories, this is not for you.

[Jehona · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not much information I didn't know. It focuses way too much on Greek and Roman gods. It gets quite boring after a while. Easy t stop reading it and hard to pick it up again.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more dry than Hamilton or Graves, but easier to use as a resource to look up personages and probably more extensive. I will keep it as a reference book rather than something to read for enjoyment.

[Tony Segreto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt good to finish! When I began this book, I was looking for a primer on ancient Greek mythology - to become acquainted with the myths and legends and to learn about the stories. The book did not quite meet my expectation, as it read more like a high level overview of each of the gods and their background. It was missing the narrative type feel I was looking for and read a bit more like an encyclopedia. The book was quite thorough, and it did give a brief overview of many gods and legends - though most on a very light scale. If I was looking for a quick reference guide or if I didn't have the ability to instantly search on the web for gods and deities - this would be a great book to have on hand.

Aside from that, I think that some of the most interesting bits were that there were several stories that I was not familiar with - but were quite interesting. This book has given me enough interest to want to look into the stories further and learn more about them. I also really enjoyed the latter part of the book which goes more in to legends / heroes / and other cultures like the Nors, Hindu, Egyptian and some of the European myths. The similarities are quite interesting and also makes me want to look into that further. One for instance was the similarities between how King Arthur pulled Excalibur from the stone, Odin's sword Gram was stuck in and then pulled from a giant tree stump, Chrysaor from Roland's Durandal (still need to look this one up), the Greek Theseus lifting the stone with the armor under it, and finally the Greek Odysseus/Ulysses stringing his bow. All of these stories have the distinct element of a task that needs to be done, and that can only be accomplished by the one, true hero.

[Emely Jimenez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me regalaron este libro debido a que amo todo lo referente ala mitologia pero no habia tenido la dedicacion de ponerme a leerlo.
Quisiera haberle puesto mas estrellas porque realmente amo el tema, sin embargo el libro tenia algunos errores y eso me molestaba muchisimo. No contaban todo lo que se sabe sobre algunos personajes y era como si, practicamente, los querian dejar de lado pero los pusieron para no quedar mal.
Al final si disfrute gran parte pero la verdad a veces debido a los errores me aburria y me hacia tener ganas de abandonarlo y nunca pense me pasaria eso justo con este libro.

[Oktay Yagiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who’s Who in Mythology by Alexander S. Murray is a roster of the Greek gods, godesses, and heroes (with a dash of the Egyptian and Hindu deities thrown in) and nothing more. The author provides the reader with basic information about his subject matter without going any further beyond what is defined by the title. It is worth its three stars for being what it was meant to be –a reference book on mythology for the interested novice.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

What weird stuff the Greeks thought up.

[Malvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reference book filled with nice ancient artworks and light reading about all Greek/Roman gods and heroes.

[Raquel Cacereño · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me gusta la mitología y con este libro he aprendido cosas, algunas bastante interesantes. Pero me parece que no esta muy bien escrito o traducido y por ello se hace pesado. Además yo esperaba algo más y por otras historias que he leído creo que el libro se queda "corto".

[Ros · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 / 5 estrellas.

Creo que nunca le he dado menos de tres estrellas a un libro y odio que haya sido a este. Fue una decepción porque amo la mitología grecorromana y fue por pura fuerza de voluntad que lo terminé.

Me parece que está mal editado y si por algo pago por un libro es para que este bien editado. Hay confusión en los nombres y en ocasiones los intercambian además de que dejan de lado o resumen personajes y situaciones que me interesaban. Quizás sea la traducción... Quizás no, pero fue fastidioso.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as a gift from someone who knew the depths of my love for mythology and I have been grateful to her ever since. Having read several mythology books by this point I was not expecting to encounter that many new things, yet Murray’s take of several of these myths were not only novel but thought-provoking. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to make sense out of the thousands of references of classical mythology sprinkled throughout European literature.

[Desmond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focuses mainly on Greek and Roman mythology and briefly covers Norse, German, Indian and Egyptian mythologies. Entries are necessarily brief given the size of the book. Good as a starting point to further study.

[Penelope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did a great job of tying it all together