It was perhaps inevitable that Richard Halliburton, the romantic, imaginative wanderer, would follow in the footsteps of another legendary traveler--Odysseus. Halliburton's second book recounts his journey through the Mediterranean in the shadow of his mythical hero. In Greece, Halliburton charged Mount Olympus "in order to visit the gods that dwelled there"; he swam the Hellespont as Byron had before him and journeyed on to Troy, where Odysseus's long adventure began. Sailing to Stromboli in the Tyrrhenian Sea; then on to the Bay of Naples, to Circeo--"island" of Circe--and Li Galli, the siren isles that shimmered off the Amalfi coast. Battling through the Straits of Messina, Odysseus's Scylla and Charybdis, he explored Sicily and Corfu before setting out for the shores of Ithaca, long-forgotten home for one, the end of an adventure for another.

Richard Halliburton (1900-1939) was America's greatest adventurer and one of the most successful adventure travel writers of the 20th century. Through a life spent chasing horizons and concocting daring schemes--from swimming the length of the Panama Canal to flying around the world in an open cockpit plane, or crossing the Alps on an elephant--Halliburton dazzled the western world. His final adventure, sailing a junk across the Pacific, was also his last. Halliburton disappeared in March 1939 and was never seen again. A great and original traveler, his wild adventures live on in the books that have captivated millions of readers and inspired generations of writers.