As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject. Hesiod, a poet born around 700BC & one of the first named authors in history, called her 'the most beautiful woman in the world' & the description endured. Even though we have no contemporary representations of her, this Bronze Age princess is still seen as a paradigm of absolute beauty. Helen, '-whose beauty summoned Greece to arms, & drew a thousand ships to Tenedos' (Marlowe), has stood for three thousand years as a symbol of beauty & as a reminder of the terrible power beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek King Menelaus & the Hittite Prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for the enduring enmity between East & West. For three millennia she has been upheld as an exquisite agent of extermination. But who was she? She exists in many forms: the historical figure of the Bronze Age Spartan Queen who ruled over one of the most fertile areas of the Mycenaean world; the goddess subject of an eighth-century BC heroic cult which conflated Helen the person with a pre-Greek goddess; the mythological & literary home-wrecker figure of the Iliad; the icon & the first recorded sex-goddess, a symbol of the power of beauty & love. Focusing on the 'real' Helen (the possibility of a flesh & blood Helen), acclaimed historian Bettany Hughes re-constructs the context of life in the Bronze Age Greece for this elusive pre-historic princess. Through the eyes of a young aristocratic Mycenaean woman, Hughes looks at the social & political minutiae that would have made Helen who she was: her palaces, her slaves, her jewellery, her feasts, her games, the religious rituals she would have presided over. By combining the physical, historical & cultural traces that Helen has left on locations in Greece, North Africa & Asia Minor, Hughes brilliantly unpacks the facts & myths surrounding one of the most enigmatic & notorious figures of all time. ...

As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject; for close on three thousand years she has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty & a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek King Menelaus & the Trojan Prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for an enduring enmity between East & West. For millennia she has been viewed as an exquisite agent of extermination. But who was she?

Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Age of Heroes who ruled over one of the most fertile areas of the Mycenaean world; Helen of Sparta, the focus of a cult which conflated Helen the heroine with a pre-Greek fertility goddess; the home-wrecker of the Iliad; the bitch-whore of Greek tragedy; the pin-up of Romantic artists.

Focusing on the



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As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject; for close on three thousand years she has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty & a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek King Menelaus & the Trojan Prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for an enduring enmity between East & West. For millennia she has been viewed as an exquisite agent of extermination. But who was she?

Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Age of Heroes who ruled over one of the most fertile areas of the Mycenaean world; Helen of Sparta, the focus of a cult which conflated Helen the heroine with a pre-Greek fertility goddess; the home-wrecker of the Iliad; the bitch-whore of Greek tragedy; the pin-up of Romantic artists.

Focusing on the



...

From Svevo, Saba & Joyce in Trieste to Borges, Rushdie & psychopathology, Tim Parks' new collection of essays confirms his mastery of the essay form. Other subjects include Saramago, Sebald, Seth, Henry Green, Christina Stead, Leopardi, Verga, Montale, Sironi in Fascist Italy, Buzzati, Bateson & Neugeboren ...

On 29 March 1912, as Scott & his two companions lay dying in their tent, elsewhere on the polar ice-cap six members of his ill-fated expedition were fighting for their lives. This was the so-called Northern Party, h&-picked by Scott to undertake his most significant programme of scientific research. The unsung hero of this group was Dr Murray Levick, whose attention to diet & mental & physical fitness played a major part in their survival. The doctor was a sensitive recorder & a talented photographer, it is on his previously unpublished diaries, monographs, photographs & sketches that this book is based. The six men were landed by Terra Nova in January 1911 at Cape Adare, 450 miles north of Scott's base camp at Cape Evans. They spent nearly a year there, living in a rudimentary hut, surveying & collecting specimens from the beautiful but inhospitable bay & shoreline fringed by inaccessible mountains. They were then dropped off mid-way between the two Capes to continue their work. The ship was due to pick them up on 17 February 1912. A month later she still hadn't come, & the men were forced to face the Antarctic winter in an igloo dug out of a snowdrift on ' Inexpressible Island'. After spending six-&-a-half months entombed in their underground ice-cave, in conditions of unimaginable physical & mental hardship, ...