In this volume L. has produced an extensive study of the reception of Jason and the Argonauts, tracing the myth of the Golden Fleece and the many adaptations and reworkings of it from its ancient beginnings up to the present (2017). This book, the outgrowth of a college course, is an ambitious project, meticulously researched and rich in detail, a tour de force that brings to bear well over the 57 literary works, children's books, comics and films listed at the start (pp. xi–xv). To control the material – and to make it more accessible – L. restricts the study of the modern period to Anglophone products and other important works translated into English. Even so, the vast number of even these versions renders this book somewhat preliminary; as L. notes, she can only survey ‘the landscape and explore[s] future possibilities for trade and settlement’ (p. 3). The rest of the book shows just how rich these new horizons are for further exploration. By mapping the contours of the myth, L. has planted several flags from which the next generation of reception scholars can start their work.

L.'s gaze darts in various directions throughout the book, but one unwavering principle is the focus on Jason's quest itself and not on the aftermath in Iolcus and Corinth. A main goal of the book is to allow Jason to re-emerge from behind Medea's shadow, to ‘redress the balance’ in reception studies tilted in favour of Medea (p. 2). The overall organisation of the book follows the Argonauts’ voyage; each chapter is based on a part of the journey, but also features a broader thematic point that gives readers some purchase in the vast sea of details. For instance, Chapter 2, ‘Femininity and Sexuality’, treats the assembly of heroes, taking as a starting point the inclusion of Atalanta in some versions as well as the episodes involving the Lemnian Women, Hylas and Medea – the last out of order but fitting into the larger theme. Chapter 3 turns the lens on Jason (‘a problematic hero’) and Heracles to explore the ideas of masculinity and leadership. When readers reach Colchis in Chapter 5, L. uses this as an occasion to explore depictions of ethnicity, race and otherness from antiquity to the present day.

To orient readers further, L. has chosen eight ‘landmark’ versions that serve as the foundations of her analysis: Apollonius’ and Valerius Flaccus’ Argonauticas; Caxton's translation of R. Lefèvre's Histoire de Jason (1477); F. Grillparzer's drama Das goldene Vliess in translation (1821); C. Kingsley's The Heroes or Greek Fairy Tales for my Children, drawing on the Orphic Argonautica (1855); R. Graves's characteristically idiosyncratic but influential Golden Fleece (1944; US title: Hercules, My Shipmate); and two film versions, the D. Chaffey/R. Harryhausen collaboration of 1963 and the TV miniseries Jason and the Argonauts from 2000, a ‘much less well-known and studied’ version (p. 13). Throughout the six main chapters of the book, readers are taken serially through some twenty mythical episodes or topics in great detail, with L. nearly always touching on the landmark versions but introducing many others into the discussion. These analyses are thorough, emphasising the plasticity and variability of the myth, which is continually reshaped by new creators whose views are themselves shaped by the cultural milieu in which they work. And yet, as L. points out in what might be considered an implicit thesis to the whole book (pp. 203–4), despite the variety of expression, canonical versions tend to re-emerge as artists seek authenticity amidst their innovations – even though ‘different periods have different expectations of authenticity’ (p. 204).

The range of works that L. draws on for each episode of the myth is astonishing, but the decision to organise the book by episode means that the book frequently devolves into a series of catalogues, lists of variants among a giant slate of texts and other versions. Take the first paragraph dedicated to the Clashing Rocks (in Chapter 4 ‘Entertainment and the Marvellous’), where we meet Apollonius, Euripides’ Medea, Diodorus Siculus and four films, Le Fatiche di Ercole and I Giganti di Tessaglia, Pasolini's Medea and the 1963 American film (p. 96). Over just the next two pages other details are drawn from scholia, Pindar, Apollodorus, Valerius Flaccus, the graphic novel by Hoena and Estudio Haus, computer games and works as varied as those by F. Brooks, P. Colum, I. Seraillier and Graves. Readers may recognise a comprehensive and compilatory approach to the subject, valuable to be sure, but it renders the book more useful for reference than for continuous reading, which can be somewhat laborious.

Throughout my reading of the work, I had a nagging question: for whom is this book meant? The wide-ranging subject matter, the attention to modern versions (over half of the versions listed are after 2000) and the interest in issues of gender, ethnicity and the Other suggest a more general audience. Moreover, L. is often at pains to explain technical words or provide general information aimed at non-Classicists. But specialised terms or references to less well-known ancient authors (e.g. Accius, Dionysius of Mytilene or Miletus) constantly intrude without explanation, rendering the studies cumbersome for a general audience. When we read that the Ficoroni Cista ‘may illustrate a Satyr play’ (p. 80), non-specialists will hardly understand what that means; specialists will want to know how an Italian artisan had access to that dramatic version. Many will find obscure the offhanded comment that Eros’ toy in Graves's novel, a relic of Zeus's boyhood, shows that the author was interpreting her (Medea?) ‘as an incarnation of Rhea-Cybele, Zeus’ mother, the Great Mother’ (p. 109). A more general problem are the frequent mentions of rationalising versions, only to have the term fully defined and explained in the penultimate chapter (p. 185) – a chapter that serves as a fine overview of various approaches to the overall myth over time.

Further minor considerations: a brief introductory chapter on the overall journey with a clear map would help orient readers. On p. 7 mythography is defined narrowly as ‘the collecting of myths as an educational aid’, but the claim that W. Morris used mythography is not borne out in the quote from his daughter, who only mentions nursery rhymes, Lemprière's dictionary, Ovid and Apollonius. In fact, while ancient mythographical sources (esp. Apollodorus) are cited, influential modern collections of myth like those by T. Bulfinch, E. Hamilton and H.J. Rose are virtually ignored as likely sources for details until late (p. 205). On p. 66 there is no mention of Heracles’ oar-breaking in Apollonius (1.1168), leaving readers with the impression that it is an innovation of Valerius Flaccus. On p. 79 Pollux is called an ‘Olympic boxing champion’ in reference to Apollonius’ version; this is misleading and seems to be drawing on R. and M. Brophy (AJP 106 [1985]). On p. 90 L. misses the opportunity to explain the etymology of Iason when referring to C.J. Mackie's interpretation of the hero as healer. At pp. 113–14 L. suggests that Apollonius’ simile of the Earthborn blocking in the Argonauts ‘like a hunter trapping wild beasts’ ‘bestializes the Argonauts … blurring the distinction between heroes and monsters’; I find this quite a stretch, as I do the speculation that this transgressive killing of the Earthborn leads to the accidental killing of the Doliones, for which (as L. admits) there is no evidence. At p. 171 L. starts the account of Absyrtus’ death with a vivid quotation from Ovid's Tristia, but the presentation gives the false impression that Ovid's ‘tragic’ accounts here and in the Heroides were more influential on the later tradition than Apollodorus’ similar version (1.133, also explaining the etymology of Tomi) and the modern handbooks (e.g. H.J. Rose, Handbook [1959], p. 203) that follow him.

Overall, this book is a welcome addition and will doubtlessly be used as a guide-map for future scholars of reception studies.