New York: Noonday Press, 1958. dj. Hardcover first edition - First American publication of this spoof of the classics, originally published in French in 1919 and translated for this edition by poet Richard Howard with the assistance of Renaud Bruce. Homer's Odyssey mentions Elpenor only once ("the first to die was Elpenor'); Giraudoux has supplied the facts of this average man who just happened to be there when history was being made. His early poetic novels established his reputation as an avant-garde writer, although he later found more success as a playwright. Author Mavis Gallant commented that he "was praised, as the author of a kind of dragonfly prose that is absolutely unlike any other, by everyone he might have cared about, from Gide to Proust, Colette to Sartre. He was also damned, by critics whose names mean nothing today. Americans who do not remember much about Giraudoux certainly know some of his plays: 'Tiger at the Gates,' and the 'The Madwoman of Chaillot'." 117 pp.