The Outline of Mythology

Thomas Bulfinch's whole mythic world — the gods of Olympus, King Arthur's Round Table, the Mabinogeon, Beowulf and the paladins of Charlemagne — told as stories, the way 1913 read them.

About the Book

1913Published
Thomas BulfinchAuthor
243Myths & Legends
500Pages on this site

The Outline of Mythology gathers Thomas Bulfinch's three famous story-books — The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalry, and Legends of Charlemagne — into a single volume, as reprinted about 1913. Bulfinch, a Boston bank clerk who spent his evenings with the poets, retold the classical myths and the medieval romances 'as stories,' so that readers could meet the allusions of literature without a word of Greek or Latin.

The sweep is the point: Olympus and the Trojan War; Thor, Baldur and the Norse gods; King Arthur, the Sangreal and the Morte d'Arthur; the Welsh tales of the Mabinogeon; Beowulf, Robin Hood and the hero myths of Britain; and the paladins of Charlemagne — Roland, Rinaldo, and the rest.

This digital edition presents the complete keyed text of the one-volume outline, story by story.

This site reproduces the complete text of the original 1913 edition, digitized page by page from the original printing. The book is in the public domain.

Rights & ReuseThe complete text of The Outline of Mythology (1913) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.