Greek Myths and Legends

The first thing that strikes you about this title is the pictures – from the cover onwards, bold, some brash, some cartoony, others dramatic, each of the eleven stories illustrated by a different person. Some of them work – Midas is painted in reds and greeny-gold, detail scratched out scrafitto style, and the pictures wrapped round the story suggesting the claustrophobia of all that gold. But the strangely large-headed Athena in the story of Arachne or the bug-eyes of Perseus are less fitting for tales of heroism and gods, mortals and monsters.

The text is an adequate introduction, evidently translated from the French, but with neither writer nor translator credited. The stories feel very much like summaries, and there is only a mention of the Trojan War to contextualise the Odyssey. With so many other versions available, such as Geraldine McCaughrean’s, this is not the edition I would choose, for either words or pictures.