The Metamorphoses

Nov 24, 2025 10:34 AM

Author:Ovid

The Metamorphoses

Bringing together a series of ingeniously linked myths and legends, Ovid's deliciously witty and poignant Metamorphoses describes a magical world in which men and women are transformed - often by love - into flowers, trees, animals, stones and stars. First published in 1567, this landmark translation by Arthur Golding was the first major English edition of the epic, which includes such tales as the legend of Narcissus; the parable of Icarus; and the passion held by the witch-queen Circe for the great Aeneas. A compelling adaptation that used imagery familiar to English sixteenth-century society, it powerfully influenced Spenser, Shakespeare and the character of Elizabethan literature.

Reviews

A powerful piece of writing...A tragicomic lament for the generations of rejects and hopefuls who fetched up in the erstwhile "muddy pool" of Liverpool

—— Guardian

Exhilarating...It pulses with sincere and bracing anger

—— Times Literary Supplement

The rawness and vitality that have been present in Griffiths' writing... make him more than able to present this material unflinchingly and powerfully. Red in tooth and claw, Wreckage makes bleak but compelling reading

—— Glasgow Herald

One of Britain's most talented younger writers

—— Time Out

Brilliantly paced, sexy and hilarious... An awesome bebut... I can't wait for his second novel

—— Big Issue

Fresh, funny and convincing

—— Mail on Sunday

Angry, moving, urgent

—— Times Literary Supplement

One of my favourite books of the year...This is going to be huge...I loved it

—— Sarah Broadhurst , The Bookseller

An enjoyably bumptious coming of age novel

—— Richard Godwin , Literary Review

Tolerant, funny and real, [the narrator] ducks and dives hedonistically, lazily, gunning out x-ray observations about masculinity, models and "the magic of miscegenation" that would have had Oscar Wilde licking his lips

—— Vogue

'Highly coloured, linguistically inventive...Evans has a powerful and often beguiling imagination'

—— Daily Telegraph

'Sensual and poetic, as well as powerful and uncompromising...A mature, compelling and beautiful first novel'

—— Times Literary Supplement

'The writing is both mature and freshly perceptive, creating not only a warmly funny novel of a Neasden childhood - with its engaging minutiae of flapjacks and icepops, lip gloss and daisy hairclips - but a haunting account of the loss of innocence and mental disintegration.'

—— Maya Jaggi , Guardian

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