The edition my parents owned and hence the one I read – I think it may be the second edition (fair use)

(1) BERNARD EVSLIN –

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES (1969)

Not surprisingly for an adaptation of the Odyssey written for children, I read this book as a child and it was my introduction to the Odyssey, preceding me reading the actual Odyssey by many years. This book is what lodged the Odyssey deep into my psyche and has remained there ever since as my version of it, the one I hear in my mind’s ear as it were – even when I read or re-read the actual Odyssey afterwards, it remains conflated with the narrative voice of this adaptation.

It helps that the book follows the original narrative closely, give or take what you’d expect in an adaptation for children. As the saying goes, what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts. Evslin even arguably improves on the narrative conventions of Homer for the modern reader – substituting a linear narrative for the non-linear narrative of the original, telling the wanderings of Odysseus firsthand rather than Odysseus telling it to the Phaeacians as a story within the story, and adding or fleshing out details or dialogue from the original. The only jarring thing is the use of the Roman name Ulysses rather than the Greek name Odysseus, as the book otherwise uses the names from Greek mythology.