Part of Penguin's beautiful hardcover Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization-the cornerstone of Western culture and an epic poem without rival in world literature. The story centers on the critical events in the last year of the Trojan War, which lead to Achilleus's killing of Hektor and the fall of Troy. But Homer's theme is not simply war or heroism. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world- human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background. This edition presents Penguin Classics founder E. V. Rieu's lively translation of Homer's great epic.