The Odyssey

Ten years after the fall of Troy, the Greek hero Odysseus still has not come home. Held for a time by the nymph Calypso, hunted by the sea-god Poseidon's wrath, and given only fitful aid by the goddess Athena, he must survive Cyclopes and sirens, whirlpools and witches to reach the island of Ithaca. There his wife Penelope holds off a house full of arrogant suitors, and his son Telemachus comes of age searching for word of his father.

Homer's ancient epic is one of the foundational stories of Western literature — a tale of cunning over strength, of hospitality and vengeance, and of the long, costly road home. Its adventures and its portrait of a man defined by his desire to return have echoed through three thousand years of storytelling.