16 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 Odyssey, because the editions are optimised for different things: for a first read, the editions described as the most readable are Robert Fagles, Stanley Lombardo, Edward McCrorie; 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 Odyssey, 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 Archive, Perseus Digital Library, Project Gutenberg. Not our work and not affiliate links — they are here because they are genuinely useful.
| Translator | Year | What it is | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel Butler | 1900 | prose translation | Project Gutenberg → |
| Alexander Pope | 1725–1726 | verse (heroic couplets) | Project Gutenberg → |
| William Cowper | 1791 | blank verse | Project Gutenberg → |
| S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang | 1879 | classic prose translation | Project Gutenberg → |
| George Chapman | 1897 edition (orig. 1614–1615) | Elizabethan verse, ed. Richard Hooper | Internet Archive → |
| A. T. Murray | 1919 | Greek-English facing prose, Loeb edition | Perseus Digital Library → |
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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emily Wilson | 2017 | W. W. Norton | verse; first English translation by a woman; widely acclaimed, most-recommended new version | Find it |
| Robert Fagles | 1996 | Penguin Classics | verse; the classic bestselling modern translation, highly readable | Find it |
| Richmond Lattimore | 1965 | Harper Perennial | verse; close to Greek word order, scholarly standard | Find it |
| Robert Fitzgerald | 1961 | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | verse; lyrical, long-standard academic choice | Find it |
| Stanley Lombardo | 2000 | Hackett Publishing | verse; fast-paced, colloquial, popular in classrooms | Find it |
| Peter Green | 2018 | University of California Press | verse; scholarly, extensive introduction and notes | Find it |
| Anthony Verity | 2016 | Oxford World's Classics | verse; clear, accurate, modestly priced student edition | Find it |
| E. V. Rieu (rev. D. C. H. Rieu) | 1946 (rev. 1991) | Penguin Classics | prose; the original Penguin Classics launch title, still in print revised | Find it |
| A. T. Murray (rev. George E. Dimock) | 1919 (rev. 1995) | Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press | facing-page Greek/English prose; scholarly reference standard | Find it |
| Edward McCrorie | 2004 | Johns Hopkins University Press | verse; readable, less commonly bought but in print | Find it |
| Daniel Mendelsohn | 2025 | University of Chicago Press | verse; the newest major scholarly translation | Find it |
| Allen Mandelbaum | 1990 | Bantam Classics | verse; powerful and musical | Find it |
| Barry B. Powell | 2014 | Oxford University Press | verse; accessible modern academic translation | Find it |
| E.V. Rieu, revised by D.C.H. Rieu and Peter Jones | 1946 | Penguin Classics | prose; the very first Penguin Classic, still in print revised | Find it |
| W.H.D. Rouse | 1937 | Signet Classics | prose; brisk accessible storytelling | Find it |
| A.T. Murray, revised by George E. Dimock | 1995 | Loeb Classical Library | the dual-language scholarly standard | 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 Odyssey 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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ian McKellen | Robert Fagles | Penguin Audio | 1999 | celebrated Shakespearean-voice reading of the Fagles verse translation | Listen |
| Claire Danes | Emily Wilson | Audible Studios | 2018 | first audiobook of Wilson's award-winning translation; Audible Original | Listen |
| Dan Stevens | Robert Fitzgerald | Macmillan Audio | 2014 | Downton Abbey star reads the classic classroom-standard verse translation; includes a Greek excerpt | Listen |
| Derek Jacobi | Allen Mandelbaum | Recorded Books / HighBridge | 2006 | widely praised unabridged reading, 'sounds like the setting sun' | Listen |
| Anton Lesser | Ian Johnston | Naxos AudioBooks | 2011 | prose translation, clear modern reading, ~12h46m unabridged | Listen |
| Anton Lesser | William Cowper (1791) | Naxos AudioBooks | 1998 | earlier Naxos edition using the 18th-century Cowper blank-verse translation | Listen |
| Anthony Heald | W. H. D. Rouse | Blackstone Audio | 2007 | straightforward reading of Rouse's accessible prose translation | Listen |
| a full cast (adapted by Yuri Rasovsky) | original radio-drama adaptation (not a single print translation) | Blackstone Audio (originally National Radio Theatre) | 1970s/re-released 2000s | Peabody Award-winning full-cast radio dramatization, 8 parts | Listen |
| George Blagden | E.V. Rieu | Penguin Audio | fresh reading of the classic accessible prose | Listen | |
| Stanley Lombardo | his own | Parmenides Publishing | the translator performs his own energetic verse | Listen | |
| Charlton Griffin | A.T. Murray | Audio Connoisseur | clear resonant reading of the Loeb prose | Listen |
Affiliate links, including the Audible ones. They cost you nothing extra. Our own audiobook of The Odyssey stays free either way.
The editions described as the most readable are Robert Fagles (1996), Stanley Lombardo (2000), Edward McCrorie (2004), Barry B. Powell (2014). 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 most frequently recommended are Emily Wilson (2017), Richmond Lattimore (1965), Robert Fitzgerald (1961). "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: Ian McKellen reads Robert Fagles; Claire Danes reads Emily Wilson; 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 Odyssey 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?