Bulfinch's Mythology is a collection of the works of Thomas Bulfinch, named after him and published after his death. Bulfinch originally published his work as three volumes: The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes, published in 1855; The Age of Chivalry, or Legends of King Arthur, published in 1858; and Legends of Charlemagne, or Romance of the Middle Ages, published in 1863. The original three volumes were later combined into a single volume titled Bulfinch's Mythology. Multiple editions of the combined work are still in print more than 150 years after the three books were published.
The book is a prose recounting of myths and stories from the three eras, interspersed with his own commentary and with quotations from the writings of Bulfinch's contemporaries which contain a reference to the story under discussion. This combination of classical elements and modern literature was novel for his time.
Bulfinch expressly intended his work to be for the general reader. In the preface to The Age of Fable he stated "Our work is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation."
Read more about Bulfinch's Mythology: Recognition
Famous quotes containing the word mythology:
“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)