"This book introduces the general reader, as well as the student of Classics, to the Iliad of Homer, the earliest work of European literature and one of its greatest masterpieces. This new commentary offers the background which readers of the poem in English need in order to understand its detail of story and characters. It provides a line-by-line guide to the story's unravelling and to the literary features which have ensured the enduring popularity of the Iliad since its composition in 750 BC."--Jacket.