The fascinating exposition of the oldest myths of mankind in this book is accompanied by numerous examples from world poetry, which makes the book a truly inexhaustible trove of quotes, aphorisms and epigraphs for all occasions. The work of Thomas Balfinch, first published in Boston in 1855, is unique and multifaceted. In it, the author set as his goal not only to acquaint the poorly educated American reader with the main mythological subjects, but also to show how to use them, in particular, using the example of poetry. Thus, writers, journalists, speakers and lawyers could use colorful mythological images in their speeches. As you can see, the author here set a purely practical and very popular goal in society. The same posed a rather difficult creative task for the Russian publishing house - to find in Russian poetry correspondence to numerous quotes from Anglo-American authors. We hope the editorial staff succeeded.