The book is an interpretation of the material found viewed through myth, and this is still valid. Many more texts have been added to the list of those discovered and translated, and many discoveries made about the site (including understanding more about the 'palace' at Knossos and the settlement around it), meaning some details could no doubt be added. Great question! The book was written just after Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B, which revealed so much more about the Mycenaean and Minoan worlds and which added richness to knowledge already discovered by excavators such as Evans. A splendid story and a splendid book.Kate McAllan Hi Elinore Great question! The book was written just after Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B, which revealed so much more about the Mycenaean and Min …more Hi Elinore Grandfield’s dominant black and terracotta palette references Cretan frescos and black-figure Greek pottery, which were, in their turn, inspirations for Renault’s own creativity. Originally published in 1958, this limited edition of The King Must Die is an exquisite object with a slipcase and eight full-page colour illustrations by Geoff Grandfield and an introduction by historian Robin Lane Fox. Her Alexandrian trilogy fired my own imagination as a teenager. Renault surely features in most people’s roll call of significant historical novelists. She brings this Aegean world into sharp focus, taking us into pagan cultures and life rhythms.

Renault’s vivid, sensuous depiction of Hellenic life draws on sources including Greek myths, legends and art, Homer, Arthur Evans’ excavations at Knossos, Robert Graves’ The White Goddess and James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. Can Theseus’ leadership skills, ingenuity and seductive capacities enable him to survive? Surviving that challenge through astute deployment of his wits, he is briefly united with his father, before volunteering for the Minoan tribute: to be sacrificed as a bull-dancer in Crete.

En route he inadvertently becomes a king intended for sacrifice in a matriarchal society. He sets out along the bandit-strewn road to Athens to find out. He may be the son of the god Poseidon, and his premonitions of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions seem to bear this out, but equally, he may be the son of the King of Athens. He is the grandson of a king, but his paternity is in question. ‘I cannot keep from putting my hand to what I find about me,’ declares Mary Renault’s hero, Theseus.

The king must die book