Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Age of Fable: Part One, Chapters 1-14
    The Age of Fable: Part One, Chapters 1-14
    The Age of Fable: Part One, Chapters 1-14
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Age of Fable: Part One, Chapters 1-14

    Written by Thomas Bulfinch

    Narrated by David Thorn and Bobbie Frohman

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Thomas Bulfinch, as one reviewer put it, "Created an anthology of mythology." This audiobook contains the first 14 chapters of The Age of Fable, the first of three volumes, comprising Bulfinch's complete work. The Age of Fable recounts stories of Greek Gods, Demigods and the best known characters in mythology.

    In our times, many references are made to these stories and characters in the arts, especially in the fine arts, theatre, and literature.

    The stories include:
    1. Introduction.
    2. Prometheus and Pandora.
    3. Apollo and Daphne - Pyramus and Thisbe - Cephalus and Procris.
    4. Juno and Her Rivals, Io and Callisto - Diana and Actaeon - Latona and the Rustics.
    5. Phaeton.
    6. Midas - Baucis and Philemon.
    7. Proserpine - Glaucus and Scylla.
    8. Pygmalion - Dryope - Venus and Adonis - Apollo and Hyacinthus.
    9. Ceyx and Halcyone: or, the Halcyon Birds.
    10. Vertumnus and Pomona.
    11. Cupid and Psyche.
    12. Cadmus - The Myrmidons.
    13. Nisus and Scylla - Echo and Narcissus - Clytie - Hero and Leander.
    14. Minerva - Niobe.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlcazar Audio Works
    Release dateJan 1, 2007
    ISBN9781939444035
    The Age of Fable: Part One, Chapters 1-14

    More audiobooks from Thomas Bulfinch

    Related to The Age of Fable

    Related audiobooks

    Children's Legends, Myths & Fables For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Philip Womack

      Aug 4, 2021

      Philip Womack
      2 min read

    • Article

      Agnete Lassen

      Aug 15, 2019

      Q. HOW DID YOU BEGIN CURATING THE COLLECTION? WHAT WERE YOUR OBJECTIVES? A. When I first started working as a curator in the Yale Babylonian Collection three and a half years ago, it was an amazing adventure of discovery. I found something unknown an

      3 min read

    • Article

      Put Your Nose In A Book

      Dec 8, 2023

      BY ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN AFRICA Struik Nature, RRP R170 What will be happening on your birthday? Nothing out of the ordinary on mine, but it misses the full moon by a day. On the night before my son’s birthday, the moon is near Pollux. Thi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Leiden Amun Papyrus

      Aug 22, 2022

      The Leiden Amun Papyrus
      5 min read

    • Article

      Music For The People

      Jun 15, 2021

      THE ANCIENT GREEK WORLD: ca. 500 – 300 BC Apollo’s heavenly lyre, Orpheus’ enchanting voice, Pan’s reed pipes, and the Muses’ ethereal songs and dances: the prevalence of music in the myths, legends, and lore of ancient Greece’s heroes and deities be

      6 min read

    • Article

      How Did We Get The Constellations?

      Oct 12, 2022

      How Did We Get The Constellations?
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Tantalizing Promise

      Aug 4, 2023

      A Tantalizing Promise
      4 min read

    • Article

      Call Of The Nile

      Mar 21, 2023

      Call Of The Nile
      6 min read

    • Article

      Book Review | Past Continuous

      Feb 8, 2019

      With the past becoming the site for so many of today's battles, there's been a spate of books on history written for a general audience. Few of these popular histories are written by actual historians though, which makes Nayanjot Lahiri's Time Pieces

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Power Of Ptolemy

      Apr 6, 2022

      How can we objectively assess the contribution to astronomy of a person whose major writing is commonly dubbed ‘The Greatest,’ whose theories held sway over astronomical thought for 1,500 years, but which are now judged as putting astronomers on the

      3 min read

    • Article

      Raising The Tone

      Jun 4, 2021

      Raising The Tone
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Final Word

      Jun 17, 2019

      The cover art says it all. OPERA AS OPERA in big capital letters. The first “OPERA” in the title is given a pristine graphic treatment, the second resembles crumbling marble. It’s perfect imagery to sum up the impetus behind this book—that the operat

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Tenth Muse

      Mar 1, 2021

      The Tenth Muse
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Past & Future Of Star Names

      Apr 20, 2023

      The Past & Future Of Star Names
      11 min read

    • Article

      Harnessing Ancient Sensitivity

      Dec 1, 2022

      Adventures in 40,000 Years of Consciousness Charles Foster Profile Books 2022 Pb, 400pp, £10.99, ISBN 9781788167185 Charles Foster’s first best-seller – Being a Beast (2016), widely praised as a “strange masterpiece” – had a premise that was hard to

      11 min read

    • Article

      Making History

      Jun 5, 2022

      His portrayals of Mozart and Shakespeare – though both stunning biographies of these luminaries – were just warm-ups for this breathtaking bio for all ages from the multitalented Donovan Bixley. The illustrator, author, musician, actor, set designer

      2 min read

    • Article

      Voices From The Past

      Jul 11, 2023

      Voices From The Past
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Age of Fable

    4/5

    229 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      I didn't like it it was boring and confusing I would like it better if there was one story in a chapter
    • 5/5
      The author was a well-educated and underemployed bank clerk in Boston who used his spare time to research classical mythology. Thomas Bulfinch was born in 1796, one of three sons of the great Unitarian architect. But unlike his two successful brothers, Thomas only failed in several businesses. At age 41, taking a modest clerical job, he began to write what became the definitive and important series of works on mythology, fables and legends. To this day, Bulfinch supersedes in quality and readership much of the scholastic materials written by academicians. This three-volume collection presents Bulfinch's studies first published in one combined volume in 1881: The Age of Fable presents the Greek and Roman myths of the classical period. The Age of Chivalry is a retelling of the legends of King Arthur, Robin Hood, and sundry British/Celtic folk tales. The third part, the Legends of Charlemagne, recounts tales drawn from France, Germany, and Africa.
    • 5/5
      Probably the most definitive book on Greek and Roman mythology, but don’t try to read the book in one setting. Bullfinch does add Norse, Asian and Egyptian mythology as well, although those sections are much smaller than Greek and Roman mythology
    • 4/5
      More modern treatments of mythology might correct historical errors or fill in gaps in the stories, but this was a very interesting view of the early scholarly work in the field. Troy had not even been discovered by Schliemann when Bulfinch compiled this work. Slavery still existed in the United States. Yet the descriptions are sufficient for the overview that was intended. Bulfinch relates each chapter to their references in literature with verses from T. K. Harvey, Moore, Keats, Byron, and Shakespeare. Many of those references are to poets whose popularity has long since disappeared, but the contrast of that to the longevity of the mythology is worth some thought. In the 1942 edition that I read, the illustrations by Stanley William Hayter were a bonus. If you find this edition in a used book store somewhere, buy it.
    • 4/5
      No matter what other versions of the Greek myths you've read, there's a certain quaint charm to Bullfinch's take on the stories. Written in the 1850s, the book opens with a forward in which Bullfinch attempts to argue the value of mythology. He notes that without some background in mythology, the allusions of the famous poets will simply whizz over a reader's head, and also adds that despite its pagan beginnings, mythology contains pure and valuable moral lessons. He then proceeds to retell some of the most famous Greek stories, noting and laboriously explaining various later poetical allusions to each tale from writers such as Milton, Keats, Shakespeare, and more.

      There's something rather precious about the Victorian writer's obvious discomfort with certain aspects of the myths. For one thing, Bullfinch has to work quite hard to extract his moral lessons; no matter how much you bowdlerize them, the major aesop of most Greek myths is, let's be honest, that you'd better "put out" whenever requested or someone is going to turn you into a tree. I also rather admire the complex feats of literary doublespeak that Bullfinch employs when handling the stories involving same-sex love; he does his best to either portray such relationships as (very) close "friendships" or simply obfuscates the pronouns. I had to laugh at his version of Sappho, as he tells the entire story without once revealing the gender of her lover.

      I also found his emphasis rather interesting. The book is supposed to be a collection of myths and fables from around the world, yet almost the book focuses on Greek mythology (or, I suppose, Roman myths, as Bullfinch uses all the Roman names. Personally, I found that rather irritating as I had to keep translating them in my head.) After 35 chapters of Greek mythology, Bullfinch decides on a brief world tour--one chapter on Egyptian mythology, one chapter on "Eastern" mythology, three chapters on Norse mythology, and one chapter for the Celts. This actually can be seen as emblematic of the era; during Bullfinch's time, the Romans were venerated as having created a Utopian society that was lost to the dark ages, and--at least, according to the British--regained by Victoria's imperialistic regime. The fascination with Romans is then something of a self-congratulatory belief that the Victorian world recreated the splendour of the ancients.

      Overall, Bullfinch's book exemplifies the Victorian attempt to both venerate and sterilize ancient folklore. Although perhaps not precisely true to their originals, I think Bullfinch's stories have a charm all their own.
    • 5/5
      Bullfinch has written a sort of crib notes for The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Upanishads, The Vedas, plus information about myths without primary books, like the Druids. The information is fascinating, and the amount of work put into the project is overwhelming. Gods and goddesses throughout the ages are shown to be just and unjust, proud, vain, supportive, vengeful, faithful and arbitrary. It's a little amusing to see him use Christianity as the basis of truth while he refers to all the other religions as superstitions, but what a wealth of information never the less. He gives both the stories of gods and heroes and how they have been referred to in literature, up to that time. Now when I hear of someone's reading Stones For Ibarra, I know who Ibarra was.I recommend this book to anyone interested in classics, literature, religion or geography.
    • 4/5
      Bulfinch's Age of Fable is a classic reference work that lives up to its reputation. The book is packed with anecdotes of deities, monsters, and heroes, some of whom I had never heard of before. Thanks to the "Index of Names", it will be my first reference when I come across an unfamiliar character (okay, my second after Wikipedia).The book attempted to do two things: acquaint the reader with the legends, and show how they are alluded to in poetry. While the legends were terse and informative, I found the poetry references tedious and arbitrary.I was also confused by the scope of the book. The contents are overwhelmingly stacked toward Greek and Roman mythology, but there's also chapters on Egyptian, Norse, and even Eastern myths. These chapters felt like unnecessary additions that didn't do justice to their subject matter.I should also say that my edition (I scanned my own cover, above) is beautiful. The fabric wrapping on the hardcover is embossed. The maps inside both covers are printed in two colours. Even the pages themselves are printed on high quality paper. Unfortunately, this edition isn't in print—the link directs to a mere Dover Thrift edition.