Medievalbookshop — AGL0012 Beowulf: An Adaptation by Julian Glover

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Scanned image of the book’s front cover

Julian Glover; intro. Magnus Magnusson, illustrations by Sheila Mackie.
Beowulf: An Adaptation by Julian Glover of the Verse Translations of Michael Alexander and Edwin Morgan.
Published Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2005 reissue (previously issued in hardback, 1987).
ISBN 0750943114;
ISBN-13: 9780750943116.
Binding: paperback, perfect bound.
Size: 187×245×9mm.
Page count: 137pp inc. 25 full-colour paintings & numerous monochrome text decorations.
Main language: English.
Overall condition good: this copy has the usual mild scuffs & marks on its covers, noticeable but not severer: page edges a little grubby, and the corners somewhat curled; in other respects doesn’t look heavily used, text appears to be free of marking.

This item £6.00
P&P inc. within the UK
(delivery outside the UK not currently available)

[Publisher’s price £12.99]
Weight without packaging: 411g.

How to order this book

‘The stage is practically empty: a trestle table and a couple of benches draped with sheepskin rugs: an earthenware flagon, for wine; and a stout chair, centre stage, to represent a throne, with a ceremonial sword lying across it to symbolise royalty and power. Nothing else. Only a minimum of lighting effects. Enter Julian Glover, to recount in resonant words one of the mightiest epic tales in world literature: the story of the great hero — Beowulf, slayer of dragons and defender of lands.’

The poem Beowulf is one of the glories of European literature. It was composed in Anglo-Saxon verse early in the eighth century, probably in the Northumbria of the Venerable Bede and the Lindisfarne Gospels, and it has come down to us in just one surviving manuscript, made around the year 1000. This is the text which Julian Glover has taken for this prestigious edition, while also drawing on the work of several of the foremost translators, in particular Michael Alexander’s widely-read ‘Penguin Classic’ text.

Here is a tale that was told in the mead hall, by a resident or travelling storyteller over several days of drunken revelry, which recounts tales of long battles, of celebrated heroes and monsters, and of the passions of warriors fighting for survival. Beowulf is presented here in a form which is as closely in sympathy with the original oral tradition as possible. Magnus Magnusson’s introduction sets the poem into context for the modern reader, while Sheila Mackie’s intricate and vibrant paintings evoke the Anglo-Saxon culture in which the epic poem was first performed.

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