King Must Die, The

Bringing Greek mythology vividly to life, The King Must Die and its sequel, The Bull from the Sea, tell the amazing adventures of Theseus, famous for slaying the Minotaur, defeating the Amazons and rescuing Persephone from the underworld.

Theseus, the boy-king of Eleuisis, is ritually preordained to die after one year of marriage to the sacred Queen, but he defies the Gods' decree and claims his inheritance - the throne of Athens. His friends are the young men and maidens, slaves of the Gods, chosen for death in the Bull Dance. His fabled enemy is the monstrous, half-man, half-bull, Minotaur, devourer of sacrificial human flesh. In her classic re-creation of a myth so powerful that its impact has survived down the centuries, Mary Renault has brought to life the world of ancient Greece. For here is the true Atlantis legend, with its culmination in the terrible, fateful destruction of the great Labyrinth, the palace of the house of Minos.

Author Profile

Mary Renault was educated at Clifton High School, Bristol and St Hugh's College, Oxford. Having completed nursing training in 1937, she then wrote her first novel Promise of Love. Her next three novels were written during off-time duty whilst serving in the war. In 1948 she went to live in South Africa but travelled widely. It was her trip to Greece and her visits to Corinth, Samos, Crete, Delos, Aegina and other islands, as well as to Athens, Sounion and Marathon, that resulted in her brilliant historical reconstructions of Ancient Greece. Mary Renault died in 1983.

Reviews

One of the truly fine historical novels of modern times. Not since Robert Graves's I Claudius has there been such an exciting living image of the Ancient World on this grand scale,Takes the raw material of myth and makes it credible- I am spellbound by Miss Renault's art,Vivid and convincing... it brims with feeling