This edition is NOT a "mass market printing" but a high-quality edition printed on white paper. The Odyssey is the story of the King of Ithaca Odysseus's difficulty-laden struggle to return home at the end of the Trojan War. Thanks to the intervention of vengeful gods, what should be a simple voyage ends up taking ten years. Odysseus and his crew are subjected to trials which include battles with creatures such as Scylla-the six-headed monster who devours six of Odysseus's crew; Charybdis, the whirlpool monster; the Sirens who lure men to their deaths with their hypnotic calls; and Polyphemus the Cyclops, the one-eyed man eating giant. In addition, Odysseus must ward off the advances of the beautiful nymph Calypso who holds him prisoner on her island-home, and the beautiful witch-goddess Circe who transforms Odysseus's crew into swine and keeps him for herself for a year; Finally, when Odysseus reaches his own kingdom, he finds more than 100 suitors vying for the hand of his wife Penelope, in the mistaken assumption that the king is long dead. The dramatic and violent conclusion to Odysseus's odyssey then takes place . . . The Odyssey was originally composed as an epic poem. This edition has been translated into English prose by a classical English scholar.