The Odyssey of Homer (1929)

Illustrated by Newell Convers (N C) Wyeth

On the left, we show detail from the illustrated cover for The Odyssey of Homer (1929) - as illustrated by Wyeth and published by Houghton Mifflin Company (Cambridge).                   To the right, we show the Title Page to this 1st Edition.

The Odyssey of Homer (1929) is based on a late-19th Century translation undertaken by George Herbert Palmer. In his

Preface to the translation, Palmer provides some background to his work thus:

In this translation of the Odyssey I have had the following aims:-

To give to the thought of Homer a more direct and simple expression than has hitherto been

judged admissible; to be at once minutely faithful to the Greek original and to keep out of

sight the fact that either an original or a translator exists; to present especially the objective,

unreflective, realistic and non-literary features of the primitive story; to report in all their

delicacy the events which Homer reports, to exhibit his attitude of mind toward them, and

to produce again the impression produced by him that things did happen just so; in the

wording, to discard originality and to make free use of the fortunate phrases of preceding

translators; but to employ persistently the vivacious language, the language of prose, rather

than the dream language, the language of poetry; and still to confess that the story,

illuminated with an underglow of joy; to mark gently this permeating joy by a simple rhythm,

a rhythm so unobtrusive and so free from systematic arrangement that no one need turn

from the matter to mark the movement; above all, to discharge a debt or gratitude to the

great friend who for twenty-five years has been showing me the beauty of himself and of

the world; and finally, to make it plain that I cannot attain these aims, and to commend

them to others as alluring and impossible.

The suite of illustrations prepared by Wyeth for The Odyssey of Homer capture the magic and mythic elements of Homer's

classic tale to great effect.

Our Greeting Cards and Reproduction Images

For connoisseurs of Wyeth's work, we have prepared sets of 16 Greeting Cards displaying colour images from his contributions to The Odyssey of Homer and on the left, we show an example of how these Greeting Cards appear.             Code: NCW OH CS(16) Price: US$80.00

When presented on Greeting Cards, these images are prepared as tipped-in plates - in hommage to the hand-crafted

approach typical of prestige illustrated publications produced in the early decades of the 20th Century. Each card is

hand-finished and the images are presented on Ivory card stock with an accompanying envelope. The rear of each

card carries information about N C Wyeth, this wonderful suite and the profiled illustration - we have left the interior

of the cards blank so that you may write your own personal message.

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In the meantime, enjoy perusing these wonderful images from Wyeth.

The colour illustrations

The Mourning Penelope	Athene	Telemachus in the Chariot of Nestor	Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea
Odysseus and Calypso	The Raft of Odysseus	Polyphemus, the Cyclops	Circe and the Swine
Odysseus in the Land of the Dead	The Sirens	Eumaeus, the Swineherd	The Beggars Fight
The Boar Hunt	The Trial of the Bow	The Slaughter of the Suitors	Odysseus and Penelope Reunited

The monotone illustrations

End Papers (Presented as a Diptych)		Title Page Illustration