Award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends, and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey . . .

‘Bold and intellectually thrilling . . . blending history and science, rigorous scholarship and dazzling feats of imagination.’ TOM HOLLAND, historian and co-host of ‘The Rest is History’ podcast

‘Absolutely blew me away . . . rich, evocative and original work . . . this book is quite wonderful.’ ELODIE HARPER, author of The Wolf Den

‘Offers a dazzling new way of thinking about the ancient world . . . a wonderful, beautifully written and important book.’ DAN JONES, author of Henry V

‘A book the world has been waiting for . . . I loved it.’
BETTANY HUGHES, author of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it’s not only men’s stories that deserve to be told.

In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.

A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.

This landmark biography sheds new light on Boccaccio’s life-his family, friends, and foes, his aspirations, fears, and frustrations-and it shows how he was affected by transformations in Italian society. It also charts the influences that shaped Boccaccio’s understanding of literature: what kinds of stories it could tell and what kinds of characters it could depict; and, perhaps most importantly, what role art could play in a changing world. An insightful portrait of one of literature’s most important figures, this book promises to be the definitive biography of Boccaccio for many years to come.

‘Jeffs writes beautifully, erring just on the right side of florid, and her linocut prints make for attractive illustrations . . . This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from’ The Times on Storyland

‘I have fallen so completely in love with this book; Storyland, by Amy Jeffs, just one of the finest, most covetable things around’ Katherine Rundell

Saints’ legends suffused medieval European culture. Their heroes’ suffering and wonder-working shaped landscapes, rituals and folk beliefs. Their tales spoke of men raised by wolves, women communing with flocks of birds and severed heads calling from between bristling paws.

In Saints, Amy Jeffs retells legends born of the medieval cult of saints. She draws on ‘official’ lives, vernacular romances, artworks and obscene poetry, all spanning from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries. The legends’ heroes originate from as far east as Turkey and North Africa and as far west as Britain and Ireland. Saints includes such enduring super saints as Brigid, George, Patrick and Michael, as well as some whose legends are less well known (Scoithín, Euphrosyne and Ia) or else couched in prejudice (William of Norwich).

The commentaries following the stories offer a history of each saint and, together, trace the rise and fall of the medieval cult of saints from the first martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. And all this maps onto the passing year: from St Mungo in January to St Thomas Becket in December.

Jeffs guides her readers from images high on the walls of medieval churches, through surviving treasures of the elite and into the shifting silt of the Thames, where lie the lowly image-bearing badges once treasured by pilgrims. She opens manuscripts that hold wondrous stories of the lives and deaths of wayfaring monks, oak-felling missionaries and mighty martyrs. With tales of demons and dragons, with the stubborn skull of a giant, with stories of sleepers in a concealed Greek cave, Saints will enchant and transport readers to other worlds.

‘Bold and intellectually thrilling . . . blending history and science, rigorous scholarship and dazzling feats of imagination.’ TOM HOLLAND, historian and co-host of ‘The Rest is History’ podcast

‘Absolutely blew me away . . . rich, evocative and original work . . . this book is quite wonderful.’ ELODIE HARPER, author of The Wolf Den

‘Offers a dazzling new way of thinking about the ancient world . . . a wonderful, beautifully written and important book.’ DAN JONES, author of Henry V

‘A book the world has been waiting for . . . I loved it.’ BETTANY HUGHES, author of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it’s not only men’s stories that deserve to be told.

In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.

A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.

Aesop’s fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “The Dog in the Manger,” and “Sour Grapes” have captivated us for generations. The fables delight us and teach timeless truths. Aesop’s tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours-one with clear good and plain evil-but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity.

Newly translated and annotated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this definitive translation shines a new light on four hundred of Aesop’s most enduring fables.

For more than a millennium, between 500 and 1500 AD, a myriad of medieval manuscripts and artworks painted an unpretty picture of cats as nothing more than lazy, selfish, and vicious. (How dare they!) Centuries later, the legacy of these masterpieces live on, shining a bright light on the dark age of cats, and telling a brand-new story of their paw-some glory.

From bum-licking to devil-tricking, cat-fighting to nip-dribbling, Medieval Cats is a claw-filled clowder of more than 200 glorious full-colour felines getting up to no good – and a whole lot more! – from ye olde times of yester yore.

‘Jeffs writes beautifully, erring just on the right side of florid, and her linocut prints make for attractive illustrations . . . This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from’ The Times on Storyland

‘I have fallen so completely in love with this book; Storyland, by Amy Jeffs, just one of the finest, most covetable things around’ Katherine Rundell

Saints’ legends suffused medieval European culture. Their heroes’ suffering and wonder-working shaped landscapes, rituals and folk beliefs. Their tales spoke of men raised by wolves, women communing with flocks of birds and severed heads calling from between bristling paws.

In Saints, Amy Jeffs retells legends born of the medieval cult of saints. She draws on ‘official’ lives, vernacular romances, artworks and obscene poetry, all spanning from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries. The legends’ heroes originate from as far east as Turkey and North Africa and as far west as Britain and Ireland. Saints includes such enduring super saints as Brigid, George, Patrick and Michael, as well as some whose legends are less well known (Scoithín, Euphrosyne and Ia) or else couched in prejudice (William of Norwich).

The commentaries following the stories offer a history of each saint and, together, trace the rise and fall of the medieval cult of saints from the first martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. And all this maps onto the passing year: from St Mungo in January to St Thomas Becket in December.

Jeffs guides her readers from images high on the walls of medieval churches, through surviving treasures of the elite and into the shifting silt of the Thames, where lie the lowly image-bearing badges once treasured by pilgrims. She opens manuscripts that hold wondrous stories of the lives and deaths of wayfaring monks, oak-felling missionaries and mighty martyrs. With tales of demons and dragons, with the stubborn skull of a giant, with stories of sleepers in a concealed Greek cave, Saints will enchant and transport readers to other worlds.