Old Jago is tucked away in the East End of London, conveniently placed so the wealthy and the fortunate can forget all about it and its unlucky residents. Dicky Perott does not have the luxury of forgetting about the ugly truth of Old Jago, because he and his family barely can afford the single-room home they live in, fighting off robbers, fleas, and the cold. Though he is just a young boy, Dicky already dreams of the day he can leave the slum forever,...

'With fair-tressed Demeter, the sacred goddess, my song begins, With herself and her slim-ankled daughter, whom Aidoneus once Abducted...' Most people are familiar, at least by repute, with the two great epics of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, but few are aware that other poems survive that were attributed to Homer in ancient times. The Homeric Hymns are now known to be the work of various poets working in the same tradition, probably during the...