Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore by Bettany Hughes

Helen of Troy is not a woman to take lightly, and neither is the author of the most impressive and comprehensive book ever written about her. The book's title is Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore, and the author is Bettany Hughes, a woman who spent fifteen years researching and compiling information on one of the most beloved, feared, and hated women of all time. With a simple, erudite, and personal style, Hughes deftly weaves mythology, history, and her own experiences and observances tracing Helen's journey into a book that is as much educational as it is fun to read. Hughes doesn't set out to prove Helen's existence or to determine Helen's innocence in the Trojan War; instead, she expertly covers all facets of Helen, and how she has been seen for the past three thousand years: an awe-inspiring princess of Sparta, a powerful priestess, and a wanton woman who took pleasure in the countless deaths she is said to have caused.

Rife with quotes from both ancient and more modern authors, poets, and playwrights, Hughes pieces together the life of a woman who would have inhabited a late Bronze Age Sparta. Hughes' imagery is crisp and sensual, and she encourages you to join her as she visits Helen dancing free as a young maiden on the banks of the Eurotas, conducting the rites of a female-centric religion, and solemnly watching over her dowry as men come from leagues away to vie for her hand in marriage. Hughes also takes you to many new places where you wouldn't expect to see Helen: as a she-devil during the Christianization of Europe, as a quasi-divine creature in the gospels of the Gnostic faith, and as a strumpet in Elizabethan England. Then she catapults back twenty-seven thousand years ago to show you the statues of women found all over Europe, as a potential fertility cult, or perhaps even more as proof that the female spirit, or perhaps Helen, has always existed.

Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore should be requisite reading for any classical studies curriculum, and would be an excellent fit for women's history as well. When reading this book, Hughes is like the university professors of history you wish you had. Her exuberance and fascination for her subject shows, and after finishing, I can't help but want to revisit every painting, every urn, and every sculpture from classical antiquity with her eye for detail, and her passion for discovery.

Hughes succeeds where Xeuxis never did, in putting a very human face on Helen, the perfect woman. The timelessness of Helen is apparent, and hopefully one day the world will see a bejeweled skeleton pulled from the ancient ground bearing the name Eleni, and we will know Helen, not as fiction or myth, but finally as fact.

Visit Bettany Hughes's website here:
http://www.bettanyhughes.co.uk