Vividly portraying legendary and semi-legendary figures such as Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin the magician and the most famous of all British heroes, King Arthur, it is as much myth as it is history and its veracity was questioned by other medieval writers. But Geoffrey of Monmouth's powerful evocation of illustrious men and deeds captured the imagination of subsequent generations, and his influence can be traced through the works of Malory, Shakespeare, Dryden and Tennyson.

    Take a close look at the vast written and oral traditions in Hinduism, some over two thousand years old, and you will find many overlooked tales, such as those of Shikhandi, who became a man to satisfy her wife; Mahadeva, who became a woman to deliver his devotee’s child; Chudala, who became a man to enlighten her husband; Samavan, who became the wife of his male friend; and many more . . .Playful and touching—and sometimes disturbing—these stories, when compared with their Mesopotamian, Greek, Chinese and Biblical counterparts, reveal the unique Indian way of making sense of queerness.

    In this penetrating book, Joan Gould brings to the surface the hidden meanings in fairy tales and myths, and illuminates what they can tell you about the stages in your own life. As Gould explores the transformations that women go through from youth to old age–leaving home and mother, the first experience of sexuality, the surprising ambivalence of marriage, the spiritual work required by menopause and aging–her keen observations will enrich your awareness of your inner life.Full of archetypal figures known to us all, Spinning Straw into Gold also includes stories from the lives of ordinary women that clarify the insights to be gained from the beloved tales that have been handed down from one generation to the next.

    These marvellous and mysterious phantoms - non-existent islands, invented mountain ranges, mythical civilisations and other fictitious geography - were all at various times presented as facts on maps and atlases. This book is a collection of striking antique maps that display the most erroneous cartography, with each illustration accompanied by the story behind it.      Exploration, map-making and mythology are all brought together to create a colourful tapestry of monsters, heroes and volcanoes; swindlers, mirages and murderers. Sometimes the stories are almost impossible to believe, and remarkably, some of the errors were still on display in maps published in the 21st century. Throughout much of the 19th century more than 40 different mapmakers included the Mountains of Kong, a huge range of peaks stretching across the entire continent of Africa, in their maps - but it was only in 1889 when Louis Gustave Binger revealed the whole thing to be a fake. For centuries, explorers who headed to Patagonia returned with tales of the giants they had met who lived there, some nine feet tall. Then there was Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish explorer who returned to London to sell shares in a land he had discovered in South America. He had been appointed the Cazique of Poyais, and bestowed with many honours by the local king of this unspoiled paradise. Now he was offering others the chance to join him and make their fortune there, too - once they had paid him a bargain fee for their passage...       The Phantom Atlas is a beautifully produced volume, packed with stunning maps and drawings of places and people that never existed. The remarkable stories behind them all are brilliantly told by Edward Brooke-Hitching in a book that will appeal to cartophiles everywhere.

    In answer to the prayers of his oppressed citizens, the gods create Enkidu, a wild man whose destiny is to first fight Gilgamesh, and then become his life-long friend. They embark on adventures together, but when they - together - kill the Bull of Heaven, Enkidu must pay the ultimate price. In his grief and fear of his own death, Gilgamesh goes on a journey to discover the secret to immortality...

    With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters' lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief—all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history—about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral. In "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain," a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend's unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a black scholar from Washington, DC, is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk.

    Step into a world of star-crossed lovers, magical winds, mischievous giants, and trolls, through some of the most exquisite illustrations in publishing history. In this gorgeous reprint, TASCHEN revives the most ambitious publication project of beloved Danish artist Kay Nielsen, one of the most famous children’s book illustrators of all time.First published in 1914, East of the Sun and West of the Moon is a celebrated collection of fifteen fairy tales, gathered by legendary Norwegian folklorists Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe on their journeys across Norway in the mid-nineteenth century. Nielsen’s illustration edition of Asbjørnsen and Moe’s tales is considered a jewel of early 20th-century children's literature, highly sought-after by art and book collectors worldwide. An original signed copy of the book sold at auction in 2008 commanded the highest price ever paid for an illustrated children’s book.This finely crafted reprint restores the stunning detail and artistry of Nielsen’s images to their original splendor. Featuring 46 illustrations, including many enlarged details from Nielsen’s rare original watercolors, the book is printed in five colors with a lovingly designed slipcase. Three accompanying essays, illustrated with dozens of rare and previously unseen artworks by Nielsen, explore the history of Norwegian folktales, Nielsen’s life and work, and how this masterpiece came to be.

    Among the essential characters are the quiet man's wife who knew the Devil's secrets, the three daughters who robbed their father's grave, and the wife in disguise who married her own husband—not to mention the Bear's son, the tricksters Fox and Monkey, the two compadres, and the classic rogue Pedro de Urdemalas.Gathered from twenty countries, including the United States, the stories are brought together here in a core collection of one hundred tales arranged in the form of a velorio, or wake, the most frequent occasion for public storytelling. The tales are preceded by a selection of early Colonial legends foreshadowing the themes of Latino folklore and are followed by a carefully chosen group of modern Indian myths that replay the basic stories in a contrasting key. Riddles, chain riddles, and folk prayers, part and parcel of the velorio along with folktales, are introduced at appropriate junctures.The collection is unprecedented in size and scope, and most of the tales have not been translated into English before. The result is the first panoramic anthology of Hispano-American folk narratives in any language.Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    But his new bride Shahrazad has a clever plan to save herself. Her nightly stories--of Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba, and many other heroes and villains--are so engrossing that King Shahryar has to postpone her execution again and again... This illustrated edition brings together all the Arabian Nights tales in an original retelling by award-winning author Geraldine McCaughrean.

    Anderson has cleared away the dross and shown us the golden roots of fantasy before it became a genre.”–Michael Moorcock, author of The Eternal ChampionMany of today’s top names in fantasy acknowledge J.R.R. Tolkien as the author whose work inspired them to create their own epics. But which writers influenced Tolkien himself? In a collection destined to become a classic in its own right, internationally recognized Tolkien expert Douglas A. Anderson, editor of The Annotated Hobbit, has gathered the fiction of the many gifted authors who sparked Tolkien’s imagination. Included are Andrew Lang’s romantic swashbuckler “The Story of Sigurd,” which features magic rings and a ferocious dragon; an excerpt from E. A. Wyke-Smith’s The Marvelous Land of Snergs, about creatures who were precursors to Tolkien’s hobbits; and a never-before-published gem by David Lindsay, author of A Voyage to Arcturus, a novel that Tolkien praised highly both as a thriller and as a work of philosophy, religion, and morality.In stories packed with magical journeys, conflicted heroes, and terrible beasts, this extraordinary volume is one that no fan of fantasy or Tolkien should be without. These tales just might inspire a new generation of creative writers.

    Gregory retells the myths and legends of the ancient Celts and reveals the roots of Ireland's literary tradition. Contains an index of characters and a pronunciation key to Gaelic names and locations.

    “The group of beliefs which constituted what for convenience' sake is called the Egyptian religion in an existence of some thousands of years passed through nearly every phase known to the student of comparative mythology. If the theologians of ancient Egypt found it impossible to form a pantheon of deities with any hope of consistency, assigning to each god or goddess his or her proper position in the divine galaxy as ruling over a definite sphere, cosmic or psychical, it may be asked in what manner the modern mythologist is better equipped to reduce to order elements so recondite and difficult of elucidation as the mythic shapes of the divinities worshipped in the Nile Valley.”

    This exquisite anthology, selected by Sjón and Ted Hodgkinson, collects fiction from across the Nordic region in all its thrilling diversity; storytelling that is often rooted in the world of folklore and fairytale, or sometimes stark realism, and typically served up with a dark and dry wit.Born in Reykjavik in 1962, Sjón is a celebrated Icelandic novelist and poet. He won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize (the Nordic countries’ equivalent of the Man Booker Prize) for his novel The Blue Fox, and the novel From the Mouth of the Whale was shortlisted for both the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. His novel Moonstone – The Boy Who Never Was (2013) received every major literature prize in Iceland. Sjón’s biggest work to date, the trilogy CoDex 1962, was published in its final form in autumn 2016 to great acclaim and will be published in English by Sceptre. He has published nine poetry collections, written four opera librettos and song lyrics for various artists. In 2001 he was nominated for an Oscar for his lyrics in the film Dancer in the Dark. Sjón’s novels have been published in thirty-five languages.Ted Hodgkinson is a broadcaster, editor, critic, writer and Senior Programmer for Literature and Spoken Word at Southbank Centre, Europe’s largest arts centre. Formerly online editor at Granta magazine of new writing, his essays, interviews and reviews have appeared across a range of publications and websites, including the Times Literary Supplement, the Literary Review, the New Statesman, the Spectator, the Literary Hub and the Independent. He is a former British Council literature programmer for the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. He currently sits on the judging panel of the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award for the best second novel and the selection panel for the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Fellowship. He has previously judged the BBC National Short Story Award, the British Book Awards and the Costa Book Awards.

    In "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will.Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic—revelatory.

    Inlanders may be skeptical regarding the sometimes miraculous, often horror-filled tales that make up coastal folklore, but Outer Bankers accept the incredible as fact.The phenomena of the Outer Banks range from phosphorescent lights appearing and disappearing over Pamlico Sound to the strange fate of a crewless ship marooned on deadly Diamond Shoals. Legendary heroes such as Captain Jim Baum Gaskill are often truly heroic.. or they may be scurrilous, like Old Quork and Blackbeard. But they all loom larger than life, with deeds and personalities unique to coastal Carolina. But this book is more than a collection of coastal legends. It is an affectionate portrait of the people who daily pull a living out of the treacherous waters of the Atlantic... and a tribute to the hardiness and courage that has made the Banker a rare breed... a breed whose true stories are, indeed, stranger than fiction.