First published in the outstanding and long-running 'red Macmillan' series in 1947 and substantially updated in 1959 (with, for example, sections on the relationship between Homer and the Mycenaean world), Stanford's Odyssey - of which this is the first of two volumes - has remained the standard edition used in upper school and by university students to guide their early reading of Homer. A substantial introduction covers many of the questions that lie behind the poem, including a thorough summary of Homeric grammar; the text is elucidated with full annotations, indexes and bibliography.

W.B. Stanford was Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College, Dublin and served as the twenty-second Chancellor of the University. He is perhaps best remembered for his commentaries aimed at students on Homer's Odyssey, Aristophanes' Frogs, and Sophocles' Ajax.