Classic Myth and Legend.
London: The Gresham Publishing Company, [c. 1913]. With illustrations in colour and monochrome from famous paintings and statuary. First edition, first printing. Publisher's green cloth, illustratively stamped in gilt and black, teg. Octavo. xvi, 443. 8.5" x 5.5" Lightly rubbed extremities, foxed text block edge, owner inscription to half title, else near fine. Overall a very tight and internally clean copy. Item #237249
RIGHTING MYTHOLOGICAL WRONGS
Gresham's series Myth and Legend in Literature and Art, published in the early twentieth century, sought to right the wrongs of totemism, a mode of mythical interpretation popular during the Enlightenment, where thinkers believed mythological storylines were simply representative of the natural world. At the turn of the century, however, writers and translators like Robert Hope Moncrieff (1846–1927) applied comparative studies to mythology, using ethnological and racial approaches to explore why classical Greece "gave a soil for the rich crop of religious imaginations that, embalmed by genius and artistic skill, have passed into the literature of the world."
In this volume, Moncrieff retells and interprets many of the most influential Greek myths, including stories of the Argonauts and Orpheus and Eurydice. Paganism became something that did not need to be looked down on but could serve as the fertile land for the Western imagination.
Price: $325.00