įive Colleges associate and classics teacher Marie S. In the preface to The Age of Fable he states 'Our work is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation.' Despite this, the Mythology did actually displace earlier, and more comprehensive, school textbooks in the United States such as Andrew Tooke's 1698 Pantheon, an English translation of François Pomey's 1659 Latin Pantheum Mysticum. īulfinch expressly intended his work for the general reader, and not as a school textbook but as 'a classical dictionary for the parlour'. This combination of classical elements and modern literature was novel for his time. Bulfinch intersperses the stories with his own commentary, and with quotations from writings by his contemporaries that refer to the story under discussion. The book is a prose recounting of myths and stories from three eras: Greek and Roman mythology, King Arthur legends and medieval romances. Martin's 1991 edition is 'by far the most useful and extensive critical treatment'. Talbot opined that, of the many available, Richard P. By 1987, there were more than 100 editions of Bulfinch's Mythology in the National Union Catalog, and in a survey of in November 2014 there were 229 print editions and 19 e‑books. Richard comments (with John Talbot of Brigham Young University concurring) that it was 'one of the most popular books ever published in the United States and the standard work on classical mythology for nearly a century', until the release of classicist Edith Hamilton's 1942 Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. The work was a successful popularization of Greek mythology for English-speaking readers.Ĭarl J. Bulfinch's Mythology is a collection of tales from myth and legend rewritten for a general readership by the American Latinist and banker Thomas Bulfinch, published after his death in 1867.

Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch