If Homer's Odyssey is, as many have maintained, "the world's greatest adventure story," then the Iliad can justly be called "the world's greatest war novel." 

The terrible and long-drawn out siege of Troy remains among one of the classic campaigns and the heroism and treachery of the combatants have been unmatched in song and story. W. H. D. Rouse, whose "plain English" translation of the Odyssey is available in a companion Mentor edition, has applied the same principles of translation to the Iliad.

 It is colloquial as Homer was colloquial, never pedantic, high-flown or cliche-ridden. It is the nearest contemporary English equivalent to the epic that Homer's audience heard at their banquets.