Arena Books

4 total works

The Golden Fleece

by Robert Graves

Published 11 April 1983

In order to reclaim his father's kingdom, Jason has been sent on an impossible mission - to take the golden ram's fleece that lies far away, guarded by a dragon. Jason, who is so attractive that women fall instantly in love with him, sets sail in the Argo, along...

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In order to reclaim his father's kingdom, Jason has been sent on an impossible mission - to take the golden ram's fleece that lies far away, guarded by a dragon. Jason, who is so attractive that women fall instantly in love with him, sets sail in the Argo, along with the greatest heroes of ancient Greece, including the surly (and often drunk) Hercules, the enchanting musician Orpheus and the battling twins Castor and Pollux. As they battle clashing rocks, monsters and seductresses, watched over by pitiless gods, they will learn that victory comes at a price.

In The Golden Fleece Robert Graves transforms Greek myth into a thrilling and richly imagined story, bringing the ancient world vividly alive.

King Jesus

by Robert Graves

Published December 1960

This volume brings together two historical novels based upon the Bible. "King Jesus" is a daring rewriting of the Gospels in the light of Graves's speculations in history and mythology. His Jesus is a charismatic religious reformer dedicated to the ethical and spiritual principles of an austere Judaism and...Read more

This volume brings together two historical novels based upon the Bible. "King Jesus" is a daring rewriting of the Gospels in the light of Graves's speculations in history and mythology. His Jesus is a charismatic religious reformer dedicated to the ethical and spiritual principles of an austere Judaism and firmly opposed to the legalism of the Temple authorities, the oppressions of imperial Rome and the allure of an older matriarchal goddess cult subtly subverting his ministry. Graves's daring rewriting of the Gospels portrays Jesus as fully human, yet marked with sacred royalty, bent upon a doomed confrontation with external enemies and internal doubts that lead to a conclusion at once inevitable and unexpected. Written in 1925, "My Head! My Head!" was Robert Graves's first novel - a retelling of the story of Elisha and the Shunamite woman. He amplifies the brief Old Testament story into a series of dramatic encounters between the wandering prophet and his inquisitive, quick-witted hostess, who, by skilful questioning, prizes from Elisha the secret religious history of ancient Israel and the true story of the patriarch Moses.
Graves uses the extended dialogue of Elisha and Jochebed to elaborate his own unorthodox theory of the origins of primitive Judaism and the role of Moses in the eventual triumph of the cult of Jahweh over the other desert religions of the time.

Isles of Unwisdom

by Robert Graves

Published 2 February 1989

Hebrew Myths

by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai

Published December 1964

For thirty years Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, one raised a strict Protestant, the other a strict Jew, were close friends and collaborators. That collaboration culminating in the book "Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis"; 'we never disagreed on any question of fact or historical assessment'. They collected traditional...Read more

For thirty years Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, one raised a strict Protestant, the other a strict Jew, were close friends and collaborators. That collaboration culminating in the book "Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis"; 'we never disagreed on any question of fact or historical assessment'. They collected traditional Hebrew myths that amplify (and sometimes subtly change) stories found in the "Book of Genesis". They go beyond the Christian biblical and Judaic versions of Hebrew myth, and use midrashim, folk-tales, apocryphal texts and other sources to nuance, extend and complete the stories. 'Myths are dramatic stories that form a sacred charter either authorising the continuance of ancient institutions, customs, rites and beliefs in the area where they are current, or approving alterations,' says the introduction. Those are the very myths that lie at the base of all the great Semitic monotheistic religions, the myths from which so many of our own structures and concerns spring. Part of the mission of this book is to see through from the authorised Bible texts to the suppressed and censored pre-Biblical accounts.
Patai and Graves approach their subject with firm scholarship and informed inference, and as we read we become aware of shadows, colours, intensities, coming back into stories we thought we knew. Like Graves's celebrated "The Greek Myths", to which "Hebrew Myths" serves as a companion volume, this is an invaluable source book and reference tool, but it is also a fascinating text to read sequentially. From it emerges a rich sense of a culture in the making, a culture consisting of oral and literary traditions, where the spiritual is deeply rooted in landscape and history.