Where does the Greek novel come from? This book argues that whereas much of Greek literature was committed to a form of cultural purism, presenting itself as part of a continuous tradition reaching back to Homer, the novel revelled in its hybridisation with Persian, Egyptian and Jewish culture.

Contents Preface Abbreviations Prelude First movement: Hellenism and hybridity 1. Dirty love 2. A history of the novel 3. What is a novel? 4. Epic and novel 5. Sourcing Callirhoe Second movement: Persians 6. The romance of Zarinaea and Stryangaeus 7. Who was Ctesias? 8. Persian love stories 9. Media studies 10. Cyrus' sex life Third movement: Jews 11. Return to Joseph 12. The Jewish novel 13. Joseph in love Fourth movement: Egyptians 14. The long Hellenistic 15. Alexander in kohl 16. Whose paradigm? Fifth movement: How Greek is the Greek romance? 17. How Greek is the Greek romance? 18. Romancing Semiramis 19. Dirty love in late antiquity 20. Conclusion: the foundation of Marseilles, some brooch-pins, and the history of the novel

"Dirty Love: The Genealogy of the Ancient Greek Novel will cause a fundamental shift in how we think about the ancient novel, its authors and its content, as well as the implications for understanding literary texts that are lumped into this genre." -- Journal of Hellenic Studies "Destabilizing the still-common assumption that novels "originated," in any meaningful sense, among Greeks, Dirty Love will be a helpful addition to individual and institutional libraries featuring studies on literature and culture in the ancient world." -- Michael Kochenash, Yuelu Academy, Hunan University, Religious Studies Review "An enormously stimulating journey through a wide range of texts, relative to the environment out of which the Greek novel emerged. The stress laid throughout on the novel's willingness, even eagerness, to cross cultural boundaries carries conviction regardless of whether the arguments of individual chapters stand or fall. Dirty Love should be required reading for any future course in the Greek novel, and for anyone who wishes to dip further into one of the topics that it touches on, the rich footnotes on every page attest to the depth of scholarship throughout." -- Sara R. Johnson, Phoenix "Whitmarsh's argument is bold and original, and part of a larger endeavor, he says, to revise our understanding of classical Greek literature by locating it in a wider horizon in which Greekness itself is interrogated. In sum, this is a rich and stimulating book." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review "If you have some interest in the origins of the novel, the classical world or the roots of Western civilisation, you'll enjoy this. I felt cleverer after reading it." Tibor Fischer, Standpoint "Path-breaking, elegant, and breathtakingly erudite. Whitnarsh rewrites the history of ancient Mediterranean literature as well as the ancient Greek novel. Indispensable reading for cultural historians everywhere." --Edith Hall, King's College London "An acknowledged expert in Greek literature under the Empire, Whitmarsh here focuses the high beam of his vast erudition on other cultures (notably, Egyptian, Persian, Jewish) to offer a new understanding of the place of Greek fiction in a hybridized world from Hellenistic times onward, one that will stimulate as well as provoke the reader to reconsider long accepted ideas." --Froma Zeitlin, Princeton University

Selling point: A new account of the emergence of the Greek novel Selling point: Expands our understanding of the relationship between Greek and near-eastern literatures Selling point: Provides insights into the novel form not just for Classicists but for all students and readers of the genre

Tim Whitmarsh is the second A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge. He also holds honorary roles at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and the Universities of Pretoria and Exeter. He is the author of 7 books, including most recently Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World, which has been translated into Dutch and (soon to appear) Chinese and Greek. He has written over 70 academic articles on ancient Greece, and appears regularly in newspapers such as The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, and on BBC radio and TV.

Selling point: A new account of the emergence of the Greek novel Selling point: Expands our understanding of the relationship between Greek and near-eastern literatures Selling point: Provides insights into the novel form not just for Classicists but for all students and readers of the genre