The King Must Die / The Bull from the Sea

These two novels of the story of Theseus follow closely the descriptions given by Plutarch in his lives concerning the later years of the mythical hero Theseus. Theseus founder of democratic Athens is compared with Romulus mythical founder of Rome by Plutarch.Renault makes the myth into a believeable first character life story of heroism and victory. The myth under Renault direction becomes a plausable autobiography of a god - Poseidon's son.The volume is the current Everymans series beautiful cloth bound volume with gold lettered stamped binding with ribbon book mark. Total pages are 584 + not 120 as Amazon incorrectly lists in the product description for this book. The Must Die is one of Renault's best works.

I read it already twice in the first Penguin editions.Now,twenty years later, they are conveniently in one volume.Beware, this is not easy writing and need some mythology background.But what good books!