The Sagas of Icelanders: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) [B1846]

2001 french-flap, deckled edge PB, 347-pages, in nice clean condition. A unique body of medieval literature, the Sagas rank with the world's greatest literary treasures--as epic as Homer, as deep in tragedy as Sophocles, as engagingly human as Shakespeare. Set around the turn of the last millennium, these stories depict with an astonishingly modern realism the lives and deeds of the Norse men and women who first settled Iceland and of their descendants, who ventured further west--to Greenland and, ultimately, the coast of North America itself. The ten Sagas and seven shorter tales in this volume include the celebrated "Vinland Sagas," which recount Leif Eiriksson's pioneering voyage to the New World and contain the oldest descriptions of the North American continent.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "I expected fanciful legends, but this is something completely different. It is spellbinding that events experienced by real people around the year 1000 are recorded in this realistic, detailed and unpretentious fashion. This is not the predecessor, but rather the independent evolution of the novel as an art form."; "Brilliant. The Icelandic Sagas are among the great literary treasures of mankind. They are also a joy to read. Strongly recommended!"; "Lots of adventure and drama. The price of the book is worth it for the first three sagas alone. Egil's Saga, Vatnsdal Saga, and Laxardal Saga will keep you flipping the pages all day long. You will find that there are names upon names upon names upon names in these stories. Once you start to figure out that you can ignore 90% of the names in these books and just pay attention to what characters are being focused on in the chapters, the stories become much more enjoyable. There is plenty of drama, violence, magic, treachery, and heroism in these stories. How these stories haven't been turned into TV series is beyond me. Could you imagine a season based on each of these sagas? It'd be incredible."; "This Penguin edition presents a generous selection of Sagas and shorter tales, complete with a lengthy general introduction, smaller ones for each one of the sagas featured and, furthermore, an appendix and glossary which shed further light on many aspects of medieval Icelandic society. You couldn't ask for a better gateway to the genre, and my appetite has definitely been whetted to track down the other stories that were not featured in this book."