Logue's Homer: Cold Calls: War Music Continued: Vol 1 [Paperback]

'Less a translation than an adaptation. Less an adaptation, in fact, than an original poem of considerable power... The language of War Music is applied with such a barbaric certainty of touch that, even at its most gorgeous or most ferocious, we are hardly aware of it. This is a work of a highly literary quality in which everything is vividly imagined, every image freshly minted.' Derek Mahon, Observer; 'The best translation of Homer since Pope's...' Gary Wills, New York Review of Books; 'Homer is re-experienced, is given the mystery of creative echo... Translation of genius.' George Steiner, Sunday Times; 'A work of great virtuosity, something completely original in style and stance... It is tremendously graphic, full of felicities as well as stark colloquialisms pointing up the drama. It is the perfect introduction to Homer, faithful in tone and spirit to the essential Greekness of the old poem.' Lawrence Durrell, London Magazine --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Helen, the world's most beautiful woman, the wife of Lord Menelaos of Sparta, left Greece in the company of Paris, the son of Priam, King of Troy. To repossess her, a thousand Greek ships sailed to Troy. Nine years have passed. The Greeks have not achieved their aim. Indeed, after a quarrel between Achilles their leader and Agamemnon their king, the Trojans, led by Paris's brother, Prince Hector, have driven the Greeks off the plain of Troy and back behind the palisade protecting their ships. Achilles refuses to help them. It is night . . .

The scene is set for Cold Calls, the fifth and penultimate instalment of Logue's Homer, an ongoing project - a piece of performance-art for the page rather than the stage - which has taken several decades to unfold, and has been described by Derek Mahon as 'Less a translation than an adaptation. Less an adaptation, in fact, than an original poem of considerable power.'

We are pleased to announce the publication of eleven more titles into the new typographic look. The specifications for the books are high -beautifully produced, they all have flaps and are sewn and printed in Italy. The latest batch represents some of the core titles of the backlist (Philip Larkin's Collected Poems, Ted Hughes's New Selected Poems, James Joyce's Poems and Shorter Writings) along with key, single volumes that should be part of any poetry lover's library (and whose reissue, in the form in which they were first published, will give a whole new generation the pleasure of coming to the books as original readers). --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Christopher Logue was born in 1926. He was educated at Prior Park College, Bath, and at Portsmouth Grammar School. He served as a private in the Black Watch and spent sixteen months in an army prison. His publications include several volumes of poetry and a pornographic novel. He lives in London with his wife, the critic Rosemary Hill. The first collection of his reinterpretation of Homer's Iliad, War Music, was shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize; Cold Calls, the fifth instalment of the War Music series, won the Whitbread Poetry Prize in 2005.