From the moment Stephen Mitchell opens with the ancient invocation of "the rage of Achilles," the reader is captivated by his rendition of Homer's epic poem of Greek and Trojan heroes in victory and defeat. Mitchell's translation is the first one based on the Greek text prepared by the eminent scholar Martin Litchfield West. West's text, published in two volumes between 1998 and 2000, addresses many authenticity issues raised since the 1920 publication of the Oxford Classical Texts edition. Based on West's work to rectify the text and the textual scholarship of other experts, Mitchell has removed many questionable passages; no removal is more obvious than the fearless omission of Book 10 in its entirety.
Remarkably, the absence of these passages does not hinder the path of the narrative merely to preserve the text's ür-form. Instead, Mitchell's exclusions facilitate the story's flow while avoiding the redundancy of some previous translations. Mitchell also diverges significantly from earlier Iliads through his careful use of language. By abandoning traditional Homeric epithets such as "swift-footed Achilles" in favor of a more laconic, yet equally correct "Achilles," Mitchell returns the epic poem to a simpler form with clear, robust language that is not augmented for meter. All in all, this handsome hardcover edition breaks through centuries of accumulated cultural weight and restores the Iliad to its rightful legacy as a gripping epic that will keep the reader up long past the appearance of the rosy-fingered dawn. --Sarah Borders, librarian, Houston Public Library