Paperback. Black cover with white title.

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The definitive translation of the world’s oldest known epic, now revised in a second edition (2020) and updated with newly discovered material.

Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as far as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, predates Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh’s adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality. Alongside its themes of family, friendship and the duties of kings. The Epic of Gilgamesh

 is, above all, about mankind’s eternal struggle with the fear of death. This new edition of Andrew George’s translation has been extensively revised to include recently discovered fragments and new sources.

Gilgamesh is the legendary hero-king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk. He is the titular protagonist of The Epic of Gilgamesh, widely recognized as the world’s oldest surviving piece of epic literature, dating back over 4,000 years. The epic—originally pieced together from Sumerian poems and the Akkadian standard version—follows a grand and tragic arc:

The Tyrant and the Wildman: At the start of the story, Gilgamesh is an arrogant, oppressive king, part-man and part-god. To keep him in check, the gods create Enkidu, a wild man living among animals. After a brutal wrestling match, the two become inseparable best friends. 

Heroic Quests: Together, Gilgamesh and Enkidu embark on epic adventures, most notably traveling to the Cedar Forest to slay the monstrous guardian Humbaba, and later killing the Bull of Heaven sent by the goddess Ishtar. The Search for Immortality: Punished by the gods, Enkidu falls ill and dies. Devastated by grief and confronting his own mortality, Gilgamesh goes on a desperate quest to the ends of the earth to find the secret to eternal life. The Ultimate Lesson: Though he obtains the plant of youth, it is stolen by a snake. Gilgamesh returns to Uruk empty-handed but enlightened.