These are the first two of a three-volume commentary on the Odyssey, compiled by an international team of scholars, making the most up-to-date and authoritative scholarship available in paperback. Questions of text, dialect, the poems relation to the Iliad, and the epic tradition in general are discussed by acknowledged experts in the field.

This is the first installment of a three-volume revision in English of a commentary compiled by an international team of scholars and first published in Italian under the auspices of Fondazione Lorenzo Valla. In this volume the commentary by West and Hainsworth is preceded by an introduction which discusses previous research on the 'Odyssey', the nature of the poem, and its relation to the 'Iliad', the epic dialect, and the transmission of the text.

'The authors have made excellent use of the chance to improve what was already a first-class monument of useful scholarship, especially in adding cross-references, bibliography and indices ... this superb achievement will do much to stimulate Homeric scholarship.' Richard Janko, University of California, Los Angeles, Journal of Hellenic Studies, CX, 1990