The Authoress of the Odyssey

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About this book

Samuel Butler's title states his thesis: "The Authoress of the Odyssey, Where and When She Wrote, Who She Was, the Use She Made of the Iliad, and How the Poem Grew Under Her Hands". The book is dedicated to Professor Cav. Biagio Ingroia, and its frontispiece shows Nausicaa. The preface says part of the matter had already appeared in England and Italy during the previous six years.

In one passage Butler asks why the woman courted by the suitors, if she wanted to be rid of them, did not simply refuse them, and goes through other courses she might have tried, from snubbing Antinous to boring the suitors. In another he observes that the season in the first four books of the Odyssey appears to be summer, and in the later books winter or very early spring, setting aside the books in which Ulysses tells his own story. Notes on this edition deal with pagination and with a coin showing the design of the brooch of Ulysses.

About the author

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was an English author, painter, and iconoclast who spent formative years sheep farming in New Zealand. A relentless critic of Victorian religion and morality, he is best known for the satire Erewhon and the posthumous novel The Way of All Flesh.