H. J. Rose (June 1955). "Review of The Greek Myths". The Classical Review, New Ser., Vol. 5, No. 2., pp.208–209. JSTOR 704652. Historians often like to think that they follow in Herodotus' footsteps; but this magnificent volume is not just an inspirational book - it is a thing of beauty too Robert Graves “The Greek Myths” is a wonderful resource for learning about the myths of ancient Greece. Originally published in 1955, it was updated for the last time in 1960. There are two volumes, but they are often available in a single book, which makes it easier for the reader to handle. Graves does a wonderful job of making the myths easy to read and understand, and discusses the variations which often occurred in the myths. His interpretation of the myths is a bit subjective, so the reader needs to treat that aspect as such.

G.S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures, Cambridge University Press, 1970, p. 5. ISBN 0-520-02389-7The collection of British Myths and Legends was released in 1998. The tales drawn together in this book by Richard Barber are from a wide range of medieval sources, spanning the centuries from the dawn of Christianity to the age of the Plantagenets. The Norse gods which peopled the Anglo-Saxon past survive in Beowulf; Cuchulainn, Taliesin and the magician Merlin take shape from Celtic mythology; and saints include Helena who brought a piece of the True Cross to Britain, and Joseph of Arimathea whose staff grew into the Glastonbury thorn. Occasional illustrations are by John Vernon Lord. Graves's retellings have been widely praised as imaginative and poetic, but the scholarship behind his hypotheses and conclusions is generally criticised as idiosyncratic and untenable. [5] Kevin Herbert: review of TGM; The Classical Journal, Vol. 51, No. 4. (Jan. 1956), pp. 191–192. JSTOR 3293608. For a full appreciation of literature or visual art, knowledge of the Greek myths is crucial. In this much-loved collection, poet and scholar Robert Graves retells the immortal stories of the Greek myths. Demeter mourning her daughter Persephone, Icarus flying too close to the sun, Theseus and the Minotaur … all are captured here with the author’s characteristic erudition and flair. It was a trial, because it is by no means a piece of light literature. Of course, certain amount of gore is to be expected, but my early age experiences with Irena and Jan Parandowski’s renderings of Greek myths into Polish did not fully prepare me for the extent, intensity and denseness of violence, incest, torture, betrayal, and general human irrationality that is present in Graves’s detailed compendium.

But when you think about the Greek Myths, it wasn’t until I went through this introduction that I found out the following:Next we have the two volumes of the Icelandic Sagas published in 1999 and 2002, that are edited, introduced by Magnus Magnusson. It’s a lovely collection. Why are there so many sets of 50 siblings? (The Danaids, the Nereids, and the Menae are three examples). Because there were colleges of 50 priestesses, who represented something like the 50 months of a "great year" of a king's term in office... yep.

The book of essays is selected from "Myths of the World", which has been compiled and written by famous mythologists.As quoted in: Pharand, Michel W. "Greek Myths, White Goddess: Robert Graves Cleans up a 'Dreadful Mess'", in Ian Ferla and Grevel Lindop (ed.) (2003). Graves and the Goddess: Essays on Robert Graves's The White Goddess. Associated University Presses. p.183. H. J. Rose, agreeing with several of the above critics, questions the scholarship of the retellings. Graves presents The Greek Myths as an updating of William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (originally published 1844), which Graves calls "the standard work in English", never brought up to date; Rose is dismayed to find no sign that Graves had heard of the Oxford Classical Dictionary or any of the "various compendia of mythology, written in, or translated into, our tongue since 1844". Rose finds many omissions and some clear errors, most seriously Graves's ascribing to Sophocles the argument of his Ajax (Graves §168.4); this evaluation has been repeated by other critics since. [12] [13] Each myth is presented in the voice of a narrator writing under the Antonines, such as Plutarch or Pausanias, with citations of the classical sources. The literary quality of these retelling's is generally praised.