Greek Myths & Tales

by Richard Buxton (Foreword)

A potent pantheon of gods, heroes engaged in epic battles, fearsome mythical creatures and supernatural transformations – such fantastical elements infuse Greek myths with a wonder and excitement that’s hard to beat. These tales of love, courage, conflict and intrigue, shared for thousands of years, still exercise a powerful influence on our modern lives. This comprehensive collection of mythic stories brings to life the origins of the Greek gods and their dominion over the world of humankind. Here you’ll find Zeus and hades, Artemis and Aphrodite, with stories of demi-gods and humans alike. Jason and the Argonauts, Perseus the Gordon-Slayer and the heart-breaking tales of Troy sit alongside myths of crime and punishment, love and courage and the adventures of Heracles.

Part of Flame Tree's epic collection of myths and legends, classic tales and modern short stories.

Genres: Mythology, Classics, Greek Mythology, Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Reference

480 pages, Hardcover

First published December 19, 2017

About the author

Richard Buxton works on ancient Greek literature (especially tragedy), and ancient mythology and religion. One of his main aims is to explore the contexts – for example, social life and the landscape – which can help us to recover the meanings which myths had for their tellers and hearers/readers (see his Imaginary Greece, 1994, and The Complete World of Greek Mythology, 2004).

In 1996 he organized a major international conference at Bristol, whose proceedings appeared as From Myth to Reason? (1999) Since 2003 he has been one of the editors of Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum and since 2006 he has been President of the LIMC Foundation. His book 'Forms of Astonishment: Greek Myths of Metamorphosis' was published in 2009. He will next be revising for publication a selection of his papers on Greek myth and tragedy.

He has taken part in a number of radio programs about myth. His work has been translated into nine languages.

Reviews

[Grace Kimmerling · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm so glad it is over! This book was awful. Not only do they belittle the culture and the myths they are talking about, they write poorly and from an extremely biased point of view. "Among all the nations scattered over the face of the earth, the Hebrews alone were instructed by God, who gave them not only a full account of the creation of the world and all living creatures, but also a code of laws to regulate their conduct." And later calling the Greeks simplistic due to their beliefs - like Greek mythology is any less realistic than their Christian beliefs. Almost half the book is a retelling of the Odyssey (and not a very good one in my opinion), and they abruptly end with random extracts from the Aneid. I can't think of anything redeeming about this book except for how pretty the cover is. Also, all of Zeus's exploits (which are barely given 2 pages) that are summarized as "winning someone's affections" seems a very poor description to me.

[Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn't a fan. Authors were pretty biased and seem pretty against most of the Greek beliefs if not all. I could basically feel the dismay on the subject through the writing.

[Katelyn Byrd · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought this so that I could learn more about Greek mythology in preparation for reading the Iliad, but it was the wrong choice. I only got to page 23 because I just couldn’t stand how they were treating the stories. It felt almost like contempt, just treating the ancient Greeks as primitive and not really having an once of respect for the myths and culture. The thing that made me stop was all of the Christian references thrown inside this book that is supposed to be about Greek mythology. I’m just going to give this book away. Definitely not recommended, it’s not something to read unless you like bias.

[Tiago F · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love mythology so I was looking for a book to read about it, and Greek mythology seems one of the richest and relevant for Western culture. The first thing that stands out in the book is its beautiful design. The cover is amazing, and the book as a whole is very well built. It's definitely one of my favorites in my collection.

Regarding the actual content, it starts with the beginning of Greek mythology, such as the egg myth, titans, and birth of Zeus, and then later it covers the major Gods in Olympus. I liked this part the best, probably because it was easy to digest and I was fairly familiar with it.

But then the book goes on to other divinities, and several adventures and minor stories within Greek culture. They are well written, but I was somewhat disappointed reading them. They are often grouped together by theme, for example, myths of love or tales of troy, and this was very helpful. But it wasn't enough to make the whole thing feel like a coherent narrative. The stories felt too disjointed to me. And they're often too many details and too many variations for me to be able to keep track.

I would often start reading the book and try to ask myself what I had remembered from the last time I read it, and the answer was often nothing. Because of how much there is into it, it made it difficult to assimilate.

I think in large part this is due to Greek mythology as a whole, and not specific to this book. For example regarding myth variations, there isn't much you can do about it. And regarding how extensive some stories are, that's part of the legacy itself. We are blessed that there is so much material about it, which is not always the case. But nevertheless, it did ruin the reading experience a bit for me.

It's not a bad book, but I was hoping to be more enjoyable. And the book is incredibly long, it took me forever to read it. It deceptively looks like normal length, but the text is rather small and the pages are big. Out of curiosity, I looked up the number of words, and it's 283k, which is a lot. Reading at an average speed of 200 words per minute that will take you 23 hours.

If you like Greek mythology, there is plenty in this book, and I found it well written. I did enjoy many tales, and I liked learning new aspects of the pantheon that I never heard of, or just refreshing stories that I had forgotten. And Greek mythology is both fascinating on its own right and also incredibly important to how the West developed.

However, from my experience, the book is overkill and doesn't feel as cohesive as I hoped. Make sure that your interest in Greek Mythology is worth a book of this scope, rather than a very short introduction or some youtube videos.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star. DNF by page 50.
Had me at first but the overwhelming obviousness that this was written from a Christian lens by several different people is just too much. There’s continuity errors everywhere AND some things are just wrong. “Heaven” is mentioned more than Olympus and the blatant bias (especially in Hera’s chapter) is so disgustingly disrespectful that I cannot continue. Tell me you don’t respect a culture and beliefs and religion that is literally still practiced without actually telling me.

[Bee Wilkinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf at 100 the author is completely disrespectful of the ancient Greek religion and makes it clear he believes anyone who isn’t Christian is a savage. He’s sexist and a terrible person who let his privilege go to his head and now he thinks he is in charge. So disappointing to see Greek mythology be treated this way.

[Kendall Jasper · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Greek mythology and collect books to find new little details I didn’t know before. But with that being said some details are widely known amongst Greek mythos aficionados. The book says Hades is the younger brother of Zeus and Poseidon, when it’s known that Zeus was the youngest, a small mistake but regardless has me question the validity of the content the book has to offer.

[Emma McKinley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel as though the authors opinions on some topics in the book are very biased, and based on modern views without a full understanding of the original context of the stories.

For example, on page 419. Crimes and punishment the author states, "the gods were nothing if not vengeful, as has been seen repeatedly in the Greek epics, and any suggestion of hurbis or irreverence on the mortal side was certainly to be punished." Most examples of the gods punishing mortals were of noble people or those of power, not the typical civilian or slave of the time, and hubris is not taken lightly in most religions.

The authors also refers to the Greeks as lacking knowledge, while bringing his own faith into the picture where it is not relevant. Page 21. Introduction. "It was not so, however, with the other nations. The Greeks, for instance, lacking the definite knowledge which we obtained from the scriptures, and still anxious to know everything, were forced to construct, in part, their own theory."

The author clearly showed a biased opinion based on his own faith, and beliefs, which is not appropriate for an informational text.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was such a let down. Like many others mention the author lets their Christian biases seep into the writing. He lost me at "Among all the nations...the Hebrews alone were instructed by God, who gave them not only a full account of the creation of the world and of all living creatures, but also a code of laws to regulate their conduct. All the questions they fain would ask were fully answered, and no room remained for conjecture. It was not so with the other nations. The Greeks, for instance, lacking the definite knowledge which we obtain from the Scriptures, and still anxious to know everything, were forced to construct their own theory.". The writing comes off as patronizing and dismissive of other cultures, and is down right disrespectful.

[Robert Rhodes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got the book to get a little background on Greek mythology before reading the Iliad and Odyssey. I thought this would be a good choice since it had the Odyssey in it. Overall, it achieved the goal. I got a very basic intro into the mythology and read the Odyssey. Outside of that, the book wasn’t great. It seemed disjointed at times - as if it were written in a certain order and then compiled in a different order. The mythology was so generalized that I found myself researching a lot of the people/gods because the information was incomplete or referenced different parts of the book that were yet to come.

I considered a lower score but went with three because I ultimately got what I wanted from the book - intro to mythology and the Odyssey.

[Caitlyn Hoffman · Rating 1 out of 5]

author called the greeks heathens in this book. wth? don’t write about a culture if your going to blatantly disrespect it. this was written with blantent christian bias which just made me uncomfortable. it was also really boring and took forever for me to read. i would have dnf’d it but that is for quitters. the only reason i haven’t gotten rid of this book is because it looks very pretty on my shelf. also, why does half priced books have so many copies from this book series? it makes no sense, as it is a used book store that only sells used books.

[Evangeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am thankful I finally got around to reading this. It’s full of information, myths I’ve heard of and plenty of myths I never heard of. I definitely think this is a good book if you enjoy greek myth.

[Elizabeth Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still currently reading this book the author is outstandingly intriguing can't wait to finish it and his other books .

[Sean Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best out of the series, but still had its moments, especially at the beginning.

[Ingeborg van Dijk · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's pretty boring and lazily written and put together. Also pretty annoying in how it's constantly condescending towards the ancient Greek and other ancient peoples

[Alisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good read that included myths otherwise not popularized in mainstream media. I enjoyed how he included the bits about Rome in the back. I would say those were certainly a pleasant surprise.

[Jasper · Rating 1 out of 5]

1/5 book with a 5/5 cover. Sentences are terribly cluttered as if even the editor didn't bother, they use some of the Latinized names instead of the original Greek ones and there are some very disrespectful sentences like "The Greeks, for instance, lacking the definite knowledge which we obtain from the Scriptures, and still anxious to know everything, were forced to construct, in part, their own theory."

I learned some new things from this book but given everything else I'm starting to doubt some of them are true. There are only 4 sources given, all of which are more than a hundred years old.