The Authoress of the Odyssey by Samuel Butler. Chicago. 1967. Phoenix Books/University of Chicago Press. Introduction by David Grene. A Phoenix Book published by The University of Chicago Press. 277 pages. paperback. Cover Design by Sidney Pivecka.

DESCRIPTION - In this heterodox but serious study of the Odyssey, originally published in 1897, Butler argues that the epic was not only written more than two centuries later than the Iliad, but that the author was a woman, a young Sicilian lady of Trapani. With great insight - and sometimes with whimsical humor - Butler examines the poem not only as a classical scholar but also as a fellow artist. His ‘proof' that much of the Odyssey could only have been written by a woman will convince many modern readers, if it did not some of his contemporaries. David Grene, in a new Introduction to the book, writes: ‘Butler's commonsense has a special sturdiness. It stands up. It occasionally approaches philistinism; but it never dissolves into verbal trickery and human falsity when we look closer. And in this strangest of books of classical scholarship and criticism, the paradoxical approach, whether you accept Butler's conclusions or not, makes you look at real things in the poem.' 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Samuel Butler (December 4, 1835, Langar, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom - June 18, 1902, London, United Kingdom) was an English satirist with an interest in music, biology, literature, and art, as well as classical scholarship. Among his other books are Erewhon, Erewhon Revisited, and The Way of All Flesh.

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