About Our Books

The Early Myths series is the creation of Simon Spence, who has taught and conducted researched in ancient Classics for the last thirty five years. His specialist area is in Greek mythology and the visual representation of these historical stories, such as Jason and the Argonauts, Medea, Bellerophon and Perseus.

The Early Myths books are a way to bring these tales to a new audience. Myths by their nature are a collection of tales, sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory. Our Early Myths books focus on the oldest strands of the tales and each of our images is inspired by the original art, such as surviving Greek vase paintings or ancient sculptures. You may find that some of our stories differ from what you have read in modern books, seen in plays, or watched at the cinema. Good! We don’t follow those leads. Instead we have gone back to the first stories from as early as 1000 B.C. and we have brought you the oldest surviving and most original tales, some of which may surprise, but hopefully always delight.

The reason we go back so far is to try to find the original tale, the less spoilt version. There is something purer and more refined about these versions.

We have launched our books first on the iPad, iPhone and Mac because it is the best way to explore interactive children’s books.

Our images have been carefully commissioned and look great on the new retina displays. We have also launched Kindle and paperback versions of our books.

We hope you enjoy the tales.

Drop us an email if you have any questions or comments - we love to hear your views.

FAQ

Who are the Early Myths children’s books aimed at?
These books are designed to be read by children and parents, with the aim of appealing to children between the ages of 4 and 10. However we believe that they act as a great introduction to Greek myth for anyone of any age.

Why is the Early Myth series different from any other myth books?
These books have been carefully designed with children in mind, with a special look at the earliest versions of the stories, at times dating back to nearly 1000 B.C. Wherever possible, we have tried to base the tale and our images around an original source- an ancient vase painting, an original example from literature, or a sculpture from ancient art.

Does my child have to know about this background source material...!?
Absolutely not! We have grounded our children’s books in the earliest versions of the tale to get the most original perspective on the stories. We hope this helps and enhances the tales but this does not impact the reader. We have lovingly assembled and presented the oldest versions of the myths, so you know that time and effort has gone into our choice for the ingredients in our stories. Grown-ups will know the value behind the work; kids will just explore the story.

Are there really that many different versions of one story?
Yes. Each myth can have many different variants. As the myths were told again and again through Greek and Roman times and through to the modern day, the story developed and changed. Our choice is to try to select the oldest pieces and we have done this through both literary and visual art.

Below is our Ketos (sea-monster) image from Perseus, next to an example of a vase painting from the 6th century B.C., made in the ancient city of Corinth in Greece. It shows Perseus and Andromeda on the right, with the creature on the left. When we came to work on an image for this part of the tale, we used the vase-painting as our source and stayed close to the original art work: