Mary Renault

A WWII soldier embarks on affairs with two very different men in a landmark novel that “transcends categorizations” (The Telegraph).
 After being wounded at Dunkirk in World War II, Laurie Odell is sent back home to a rural British hospital. Standing out among the orderlies is Andrew, a bright conscientious objector raised as a Quaker. The unspoken romance between the two men is tested when Ralph, a friend...

In myth, Theseus was the slayer of the child-devouring Minotaur in Crete. What the founder-hero might have been in real life is another question, brilliantly explored in The King Must Die. Drawing on modern scholarship and archaeological findings at Knossos, Mary Renault's Theseus is an utterly lifelike figure-a king of immense charisma, whose boundless strivings flow from strength and weakness-but also one steered by implacable prophecy. The story...

In The Bull from the Sea, the story of Theseus resumes with the hero's return from Knossos. In the wake of his father's suicide, Athens is now Theseus's to rule. With his close friend Pirithoos, Theseus sets out for the land of the Amazons, falling in love with their beautiful leader, Hippolyta. Her boldness and sense of honor match his own, but though they're happy and bear a son, tragedy lies ahead. The Athenians mistrust the foreign Hippolyta,...

By the end of his reign, Alexander the Great had seized control of an empire that extended from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. When he died in 323 BC, a fervent scramble for power ensued. Funeral Games is Mary Renault's remarkable novel of this turmoil and the gradual erosion of the Greek empire. The power players include Ptolemy, two father-son teams, and a cadre of influential women-not least of whom is Eurydike, whose plan is to marry Alexander's...

Simonides of Keos lived during the fifth and sixth centuries BC, a fertile period for the arts, when myths were being acted out and verse had just begun to be written down. In this evocative portrayal of Simonides, the poet is learning to master his craft and secure fickle patrons, and his travels place him at the scene of many central historical events. This fact, along with his friendship with gallivanting, brilliant Anakreon, makes him a perfect...