Opening your find
Back to search
Opening your find
The World's Desire is a classic fantasy novel first published in 1890 and written by H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang.
Its importance was recognised in its later revival in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fortieth volume of the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in January 1972. The World's Desire is the story of the hero Odysseus, mainly referred to as "the Wanderer" for the bulk of the novel. Odysseus returns home to Ithaca after his second, unsung journey.
He is hoping to find a "home at peace, wife dear and true and his son worthy of him".Unfortunately, he does not find any of the three, instead his home is ravaged by a plague and his wife Penelope has been slain. As he grieves, he is visited by an old flame, Helen of Troy, for whom the novel is named.
Helen leads him to equip himself with the Bow of Eurytus and embark on his last journey. This is an exhausting journey in which he encounters a Pharaoh who is wed to a murderess beauty, a holy and helpful priest, and his own fate.
Odysseus, sometimes addressed as Ulysses or simply "the Wanderer," is returning home from his unsung, second wandering. The son of Laertes was required to wander until he reached the land of men who have never tasted salt.
Odysseus had endured the curse, fulfilled the prophecy and wanted only to return to a "home at peace, wife dear and true and his son worthy of him"[4] This was not the home he found. He returns to his home to find upon the arm of a stranger the gold bracelet he had given his wife, Penelope.
Overwhelmed with his grief, Odysseus takes solace when he find the Bow of Eurytus and his armour, still intact. With these in his possession, he continues on through Ithaca. Along the way, Odysseus stops to rest at the Temple of Aphrodite and is accosted by the vision of the young and beautiful Helen of Troy, a previous love.
The vision tells him to find Helen, leaving him with a renewed sense of purpose and a full chalice of wine. He sleeps, and wakes during his capture
No reviews available here yet.
Tell us what you’d change, or start with a new idea.
