The Greek Myths — Robert Graves | Folio Society 1996 | Quarter Leather | Illustrated by Grahame Baker | In Slipcase

The book that made the Greek myths readable, in the binding Folio doesn't do any more.

Robert Graves spent a lifetime among these stories and retold all of them — every god, every hero, every unfortunate nymph — in prose that moves briskly and never talks down to you. It remains the most enjoyable single volume on the subject anyone has written: seven hundred pages of gods behaving appallingly and mortals paying for it.

A word of honesty about the scholarship, because it's part of the book's character. Graves attached his own theory to the myths — that they preserve traces of a lost matriarchal religion overthrown by patriarchal invaders — and classicists have been rolling their eyes at it ever since. Read him for the storytelling, which is superb, and take the theorising as the enthusiasm of a poet rather than the findings of an archaeologist. He would probably not have minded.

This is the 1996 Folio Society edition, and the binding is the point. It is quarter-bound in deep brown leather — one of the very last standard Folio Society titles to be leather-bound at all — with a gilt Greek key band running down the board edge and the title in gilt to the spine. The boards carry Grahame Baker's two-colour scraperboard illustration of Leda and the Swan, done in the manner of a red-figure vase and rather good at conveying that Leda has just worked out what is happening. Sixteen further illustrations by Baker appear inside, along with map endpapers by Denys Baker and page tops stained dark brown.

Worth knowing if you're comparing copies. From 1998 Folio reissued this as a smaller two-volume set in plain cloth with white boards and monochrome illustrations. It's a perfectly decent book but it isn't this one. This is the single-volume leather issue, the first form, with the colour plates intact.

Condition. Very good overall, with the faults confined to the spine.

The gilt lettering is marked, with flecking and loss to the gold across the letters, and there are several small white specks scattered on the spine leather. Both are visible in our photographs, which we have taken close and in full light rather than flattering them. Everything else is in fine order: the leather is clean and supple with no scuffing or dryness, the boards are fresh, the Leda illustration is crisp and unfaded, and the gilt Greek key band is bright. Internally clean and tight throughout, seemingly little read. The slipcase shows light rubbing to the corners and edges but is sound and unsplit.

Priced for the spine. Shelve it with that side to the wall and you'd never know — but you'd know, so we've told you.

A handsome book that will not stay handsome by accident, and a genuinely good read besides.

One of a kind — when it's gone, it's gone.

Free UK delivery. Hand-wrapped in stiff card and packing paper.

The book that made the Greek myths readable, in the binding Folio doesn't do any more.

Robert Graves spent a lifetime among these stories and retold all of them — every god, every hero, every unfortunate nymph — in prose that moves briskly and never talks down to you. It remains the most enjoyable single volume on the subject anyone has written: seven hundred pages of gods behaving appallingly and mortals paying for it.

A word of honesty about the scholarship, because it's part of the book's character. Graves attached his own theory to the myths — that they preserve traces of a lost matriarchal religion overthrown by patriarchal invaders — and classicists have been rolling their eyes at it ever since. Read him for the storytelling, which is superb, and take the theorising as the enthusiasm of a poet rather than the findings of an archaeologist. He would probably not have minded.

This is the 1996 Folio Society edition, and the binding is the point. It is quarter-bound in deep brown leather — one of the very last standard Folio Society titles to be leather-bound at all — with a gilt Greek key band running down the board edge and the title in gilt to the spine. The boards carry Grahame Baker's two-colour scraperboard illustration of Leda and the Swan, done in the manner of a red-figure vase and rather good at conveying that Leda has just worked out what is happening. Sixteen further illustrations by Baker appear inside, along with map endpapers by Denys Baker and page tops stained dark brown.

Worth knowing if you're comparing copies. From 1998 Folio reissued this as a smaller two-volume set in plain cloth with white boards and monochrome illustrations. It's a perfectly decent book but it isn't this one. This is the single-volume leather issue, the first form, with the colour plates intact.

Condition. Very good overall, with the faults confined to the spine.

The gilt lettering is marked, with flecking and loss to the gold across the letters, and there are several small white specks scattered on the spine leather. Both are visible in our photographs, which we have taken close and in full light rather than flattering them. Everything else is in fine order: the leather is clean and supple with no scuffing or dryness, the boards are fresh, the Leda illustration is crisp and unfaded, and the gilt Greek key band is bright. Internally clean and tight throughout, seemingly little read. The slipcase shows light rubbing to the corners and edges but is sound and unsplit.

Priced for the spine. Shelve it with that side to the wall and you'd never know — but you'd know, so we've told you.

A handsome book that will not stay handsome by accident, and a genuinely good read besides.

One of a kind — when it's gone, it's gone.

Free UK delivery. Hand-wrapped in stiff card and packing paper.