This is a very select bibliography for Stealing Athena. I have been studying the ancient Greek world for more than a decade, and the history of art for three decades, and it would be impossible to chronicle all the sources that influenced and contributed to the content of the novel. I highly recommend the Kate Williams biography of Emma Hamilton for anyone interested in the period and the Susan Nagel biography of Mary Nisbet for anyone interested in learning more about that character.
Anderson, Bonnie S. and Zinsser, Judith P. A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present, Volume I. New York: Perennial Library, 1989. (Originally published by Harper & Row, 1988.)
Boardman, John and Finn, David (photographs). The Parthenon and its Sculptures. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985. Originally published in the U. K. by Thames and Hudson, Ltd., London.
Bozkurt, Erhan K. Life in the Harem. Translated by Stuart Kline. Istanbul: Keskin, 2002.
Cantarella, Eva.
—Bisexuality in the Ancient World. Translated by Carmac O’Cuilleanain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
—Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Translated by Maureen B. Fant. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press: 1987. Originally published asL’ambiguo malanno by Editori Riuniti, 1981.
Connelly, Joan Breton. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford, 2007.
Davidson, James. Courtesans and Fishcakes: The consuming passions of classical Athens.
HarperPerennial: New York, 1999. A delightful and highly readable book on the subject.
Freely, John. Inside the Seraglio: Private Lives of the Sultans in Istanbul. London: Viking Books, 1999.
Faroqhi, Suraiya. Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. London: I. B. Tauris, 1995.
Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough. New York: Macmillan, 1922.
Graves, Robert.
—The Greek Myths. Volumes I & II.
—The White Goddess.
Hall, Lee. Athena: A New Look at the Goddess of Culture Wars and Sexual Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1997.
Hanson, Victor Davis. A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. New York: Random House, 2005.
Henry, Madeleine M. Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Herold, J. Christopher. The Age of Napoleon. Mariner Books Edition, New York, 2002.
Hitchens, Christopher. The Elgin Marbles: Should they be returned to Greece? London: Verso, 1997. (Originally published by Chatto and Windus, 1987.)
Hurwit, Jeffrey M. The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. An abridged version of Professor Hurwit’s The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archeology from the Neolothic Era to the Present.
Hughes, Alan. “Konnakis: A Scene From the Comic Theater.” University of Calgary Press; Classical Association of Canada. XLI-N.S. 16, 1997.
Jenkins, Ian. The Parthenon Frieze. London: The British Museum Press, 1994.
King, Dorothy. The Elgin Marbles. London: Hutchinson, 2006.
Lewis, Sian. The Athenian Woman: An iconographic handbook. Routledge: London and New York, 2002.
Licht, Hans. Sexual Life in Ancient Greece. New York: Dorset Press, 1993.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. The Turkish Embassy Letters. Introduction by Anita Desai. Little Brown Book Group: New York, 1994. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an inveterate traveler and a prolific writer. Her husband was Ambassador to Turkey in the 1700s, and her letters are an invaluable source on how an Englishwoman (a gifted and open-minded one) viewed life in the Ottoman Empire.
Nagel, Susan. Mistress of the Elgin Marbles: A biography of Mary Nesbit, Countess of Elgin. William Morrow: New York, 2004.
Nagler, A. M. A Source Book in Theatrical History. New York: Dover Press, 1959.
Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Podlecki, Anthony J. Perikles and his Circle. Routledge Press: London, 1998.
Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975.
Smith, A. H. “Lord Elgin and his Collection.” Journal of Hellenic Studies, Volume 36, 1916.
St. Clair, William. Lord Elgin and the Marbles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967. This is the definitive work on the subject.
Stuart, James & Revett, Nicholas. The Antiquities of Athens. Edited by William Kinnard. Priestly and Weale: London, 1825.
Vrettos, Theodore. A Shadow of Magnitude: The acquisition of the Elgin Marbles. G. P. Putnam & Sons: New York, 1974.
Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1983.
Williams, Kate. England’s Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton. Ballantine Books:
New York, 2006.
Ancient Sources
Pausanias. Description of Greece (Attica & Corinth), Volume 1, Books 1–2 (Loeb Classical Library). 1918. W. H. Jones and H. A. Ormerod, translators.
Xenophon. Conversations of Socrates. Translated by Hugh Tredennick and Robin Waterfield. London: Penguin Classics, 1990.
Plutarch. Life of Pericles. The Dryden Translation, edited by Arthur Hugh Clough. New York: The Modern Library Edition, 1992.
Thucydides. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. Edited by Robert B. Strassler. Introduction by Victor Davis Hanson. New York: Touchstone, 1998.
And, as always, Herodotus and the dialogues of Plato, the plays of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Aeschylus are invaluable and irreplaceable sources for life, thought, and culture in classical Athens.
