15 in-print translations and 11 audiobooks, compared by who made them, when, and what each one is actually trying to do — Homer.
The short answer. There is no single best translation of The Iliad, because the editions are optimised for different things: for a first read, the editions described as the most readable are Stanley Lombardo, Robert Fitzgerald, Barry B. Powell; to stay closest to the original, Emily Wilson, Richmond Lattimore, Caroline Alexander; on audio the choice is mostly which translation is being read and whether it is one narrator or a full cast.
Every claim below is the publisher’s or translator’s own description, shown next to it, so you can judge rather than take our word. And you can read the whole thing free on this site first.
Scriptorium Press publishes a complete new plain-English translation of The Iliad, free, with a complete free audiobook. No account, no paywall — 24 works in this volume.
Start reading free → Free audiobook → Whole book on one page →Older translations, out of copyright, hosted free by Internet Classics Archive (MIT), Perseus Digital Library (Tufts), Project Gutenberg, Wikisource. Not our work and not affiliate links — they are here because they are genuinely useful.
| Translator | Year | What it is | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Pope | 1715–1720 | famous heroic-couplet verse translation | Project Gutenberg → |
| George Chapman | 1611 | Elizabethan verse, the translation Keats wrote about | Project Gutenberg → |
| William Cowper | 1791 (this ed. 1860) | blank verse | Project Gutenberg → |
| Edward Smith-Stanley, Earl of Derby | 1864 | blank verse, Victorian standard | Project Gutenberg → |
| Samuel Butler | 1898 | plain prose translation | Project Gutenberg → |
| Samuel Butler | 1898 | same prose translation, wiki-formatted with all 24 books | Wikisource → |
| Samuel Butler | 1898 | prose, browsable by book plus single-file download | Internet Classics Archive (MIT) → |
| Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf, and Ernest Myers | 1883 | prose translation, joint effort by three scholars | Project Gutenberg → |
| Theodore Alois Buckley | 1851 | literal prose translation | Project Gutenberg → |
| A. T. Murray | 1924 | facing prose translation with Greek text, CC-BY-SA reuse | Perseus Digital Library (Tufts) → |
Sorted as the research file records them. The note on each row is that edition’s own published description.
| Translator | Year | Publisher | What it is | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robert Fagles | 1990 | Penguin Classics | verse; the most widely recommended modern edition, with Bernard Knox introduction | Find it |
| Emily Wilson | 2023 | W. W. Norton | verse; first Iliad translation by a woman, widely acclaimed, matches Greek line-for-line | Find it |
| Richmond Lattimore | 1951 | University of Chicago Press | verse; the classic scholarly standard, closely literal | Find it |
| Stanley Lombardo | 1997 | Hackett Publishing | verse; fast, punchy, colloquial idiom, popular in classrooms | Find it |
| Robert Fitzgerald | 1974 | Oxford World's Classics | verse; lyrical, poetic register, long-standing classroom favorite | Find it |
| Caroline Alexander | 2015 | Ecco (HarperCollins) | verse; first woman to publish a complete English Iliad, praised for fidelity to the Greek | Find it |
| Peter Green | 2015 | University of California Press | verse; scholarly, with extensive introduction and notes, close to the Greek meter | Find it |
| Barry B. Powell | 2013 | Oxford University Press | verse; readable modern rendering by a noted Homeric scholar | Find it |
| A. T. Murray (revised by William F. Wyatt) | 1924 | Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library) | prose; facing-page Greek text, the standard scholarly reference edition | Find it |
| Anthony Verity | 2011 | Oxford World's Classics | verse; close fidelity to Homer's line numbering | Find it |
| Stephen Mitchell | 2011 | Free Press | verse; streamlined and highly readable | Find it |
| Edward McCrorie | 2012 | Johns Hopkins University Press | verse; close and rhythmic | Find it |
| Herbert Jordan | 2008 | University of Oklahoma Press | verse; fluent unrhymed modern translation | Find it |
| Martin Hammond | 1987 | Penguin Classics | prose; clear accessible narrative | Find it |
| E.V. Rieu, revised by Peter Jones | 2003 | Penguin Classics | prose; brisk and accessible | Find it |
Those are affiliate links. They cost you nothing extra and pay a small commission to the people who publish these editions, and to us.
The thing that most changes an audiobook of The Iliad is which translation is being read — a scholarly text and a colloquial one are different listening experiences before the narrator says a word.
| Narrator | Translation read | Publisher | Year | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Derek Jacobi (with Maria Tucci) | Robert Fagles | Penguin Audio | 2006 | celebrity narrator; pairs with McKellen's Odyssey; long-running bestseller edition | Listen |
| Stanley Lombardo | Stanley Lombardo (his own) | Parmenides Audio | 2006 | translator reads his own punchy, modern-idiom version; also performs with drum accompaniment in live readings | Listen |
| Dan Stevens | Robert Fitzgerald | Audible Studios | 2019 | Downton Abbey star narrates the classic Fitzgerald blank-verse translation | Listen |
| Alfred Molina | Stephen Mitchell | Blackstone Audio / Simon & Schuster Audio | 2011 | Mitchell's leaner West-edition-based text; award-nominated performance | Listen |
| Anton Lesser | Ian Johnston | Naxos AudioBooks | 2006 | unabridged 16h39m; acclaimed RSC-actor narration of a free modern verse rendering | Listen |
| Vidish Athavale | Robert Fagles | Audible Studios / Penguin Audio | 2023 | newer re-recording of the Fagles translation | Listen |
| Full cast (Christopher Eccleston as Achilles, Iain Glen as Hector, narrated/hosted by Derek Jacobi) | BBC dramatized adaptation (not a single literary translation) | BBC Radio 4 / BBC Audio | 2006 | studio drama, not a straight-read translation | Listen |
| George Guidall | Robert Fitzgerald | Recorded Books | 1994 | long-standing library-market unabridged edition, veteran audiobook narrator | Listen |
| Audra McDonald | Emily Wilson | Audible Studios | 2023 | Audie Award winner; dynamic reading of the acclaimed new verse translation | Listen |
| Anthony Heald | W.H.D. Rouse | Blackstone Audio | 2008 | brisk prose telling with many distinct character voices | Listen |
| Charlton Griffin | Richmond Lattimore | Audio Connoisseur | clear resonant reading of the scholarly standard | Listen |
Affiliate links, including the Audible ones. They cost you nothing extra. Our own audiobook of The Iliad stays free either way.
The editions described as the most readable are Stanley Lombardo (1997), Robert Fitzgerald (1974), Barry B. Powell (2013), Stephen Mitchell (2011). Their published descriptions emphasise pace and plain modern idiom rather than strict line-by-line fidelity, which is what makes them easier on a first pass.
The editions noted for fidelity to the source are Emily Wilson (2023), Richmond Lattimore (1951), Caroline Alexander (2015), Anthony Verity (2011) - described as literal, close to the original metre, or matching the original line numbering.
The most frequently recommended are Robert Fagles (1990), Emily Wilson (2023), Richmond Lattimore (1951). "Most recommended" is not the same as "best for you": a scholarly standard and an easy first read are different books, and the table on this page shows which is which.
There are 11 commercial recordings. They differ mainly in which translation is being read and whether it is a single narrator or a full cast: Derek Jacobi (with Maria Tucci) reads Robert Fagles; Stanley Lombardo reads Stanley Lombardo (his own); Dan Stevens reads Robert Fitzgerald. A complete free audiobook of our own translation is also on this site.
Yes. Scriptorium Press publishes a complete new plain-English translation of The Iliad free to read, with a complete free audiobook, no account and no paywall - 24 works in this volume.
Historical context, on our companion site: Was the Trojan War real?