A Book of Myths

Jean Lang gathered thirty-four of the old stories here and retold them in plain, unhurried English: Prometheus stealing fire, Pandora opening what she was told to leave shut, Pygmalion’s statue waking, Midas ruined by his own wish, Orpheus going down after Eurydice. Most are Greek, though she does not stop there. Later chapters cross north and west for the Lorelei, Freya, the death of Baldur, Beowulf, Roland the Paladin, the Children of Lîr and Deirdrê. Lang breaks the narration with her own commentary and with lines from Milton, Keats, Tennyson and others the same myths had caught. She finished the book in 1914; it reached readers the next year, carrying a postscript that set Prometheus beside those enduring the war that had begun that August. Helen Stratton supplied the colour illustrations.