"Tell me, Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered far and wide after he had sacked Troy's sacred city, and saw the towns of many men and knew their mind." The man is Odysseus ? trickster, warrior, captain, and king ? and the Odyssey is his tale. This magnificent Calla edition features the 1873 verse translation of the ancient classic by poet William Cullen Bryant. Sixteen full-color plates by artist N. C. Wyeth, originally created for a 1929 edition, are now presented for the first time in conjunction with a verse translation of Homer's epic poem.

Both the Iliad and the Odyssey are attributed to Homer, the first and greatest of the Greek poets. Homer's biographical dates are a matter of conjecture, as is his actual existence. Legend characterizes him as a blind minstrel who wandered Greece, singing his epic poems in the ancient oral tradition. American artist and illustrator Newell Convers Wyeth (1882?1945) was a student of Howard Pyle. He created more than 3,000 paintings and illustrated more than 100 books. His home and studio in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, are designated as a National Historic Landmark. American poet William Cullen Bryant (1794?1878) was also a lawyer, journalist, and long-time editor of the New-York Evening Post. He studied both Greek and Latin in his youth, and in his old age he revisited his love of the classics to write blank-verse translations of both the Iliad and the Odyssey.