This is a book list of actual myths, folklore and fairy tales — usually in translation. The best way to learn the myth stories, is by reading them in as close to the original format as possible.
Edith Hamilton’s Mythology may be a great introduction to Greek, Roman and Norse myths, but it’s a pale shadow compared to the real stories.
So You Want to Discover Myths?
Interested in one or more of these books? Click the mouse on the book title to order it from your local CLEVNET library.
The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian translated by Andrew George
Documents from Old Testament Times edited by D. Winton Thomas
The Egyptian Book of the Dead translated by E.A. Wallis Budge
The Iliad of Homer by Homer, translated by Richmond Alexander Lattimore
The Odyssey of Homer by Homer, translated by Richmond Alexander Lattimore
The Homeric Hymns by Homer, translated by Apostolos N. Athanassakis
Hesiod: Theogony; The Works and Days; The Shield of Herakles by Hesiod, translated by Apostolos N. Athanassakis
The Oresteia (Agamemnon — The Libation Bearers — The Furies) by Aeschylus, translated by Alan Shapiro and Peter Burian
Persians and Other Plays (Persians — Seven against Thebes — Suppliants — Prometheus Bound) by Aeschylus, translated by Christopher Collard
The Theban Plays of Sophocles (Antigone — Oedipus tyrannos — Oedipus at Colonus) by Sophocles, translated by David R. Slavitt
Four Tragedies (Ajax — Women of Trachis — Electra — Philoctetes) by Sophocles, translated by Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff
Euripides: 10 Plays (Alcestis — Hippolytus — Ion — Electra — Iphigenia at Aulis — Iphigenia among the Taurians — Medea — The Bacchae — The Trojan women — The Cyclops) by Euripides, translated by Paul Roche
Apollodorus: The Library, with An English Translation by Apollodorus, translated by James George Frazer
The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Robert Fitzgerald
Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated by Charles Martin
The Poetic Edda translated by Carolyne Larrington
The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology by Snorri Sturluson, translated by Jesse L. Byock
The Nibelungenlied translated by D.G. Mowat
The Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer translation by Jesse L. Byock
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation translated by Seamus Heaney
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight translated and edited by William Vantuono
Early Irish Myths and Sagas translated by Jeffrey Gantz
The Tain (also called: Tain bo Cuailnge) translated by Ciaran Carson
The Mabinogi, and Other Medieval Welsh Tales translated by Patrick K. Ford
The Song of Roland (also called: Chanson de Roland) translated by W. S. Merwin
The Poem of the Cid (also called: El Poema Del Mio Cid) translation by W. S. Merwin
The Mahabharata: An Abridged Translation by John D. Smith
Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation translated by Stephen Mitchell
You can view another version of So You Want to Discover Myths? book list complete with my annotations for many of the books at the CLEVNET webcatalog.
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