Here for the first time, is a biography written especially for young people of the controversial nineteenth century figure who was renowned as an astute and highly successful businessman, but whose claim to permanent fame is that he not only proved the ancient city of Troy had really existed, but also discovered its actual site.

It seemed unlikely that Heinrich Schliemann, the son of a poor German pastor, apprenticed to a grocer, could ever fulfill his great desire, conceived in childhood when his imagination was caught by Homer's Iliad, the desire to prove that Troy was more than just a legendary city. But with amazing drive, he overcame all obstacles, working diligently as a Dutch merchant's errand boy, then clerk; teaching himself eight languages; and eventually, while still a young man, amassing a fortune with business interests in Russia, the United States (of which he became a citizen), and Europe. Wealth was of importance to him only because, with it, he could start his search for Troy and its buried treasure. In 1870, he began excavations at Hissarlik in Turkey. How he located Troy by following, literally, all the details in his beloved Iliad makes on of the most absorbing episodes in this highly readable book.

Miss Braymer has drawn an objective, well-balanced portrait of a man who, though inspired and dedicated, was also arrogant and erratic, and who, in later years, was forced to retract some of the claims he made about his early discoveries. But, nevertheless, Schliemann accomplished what no one else had even attempted before, and, in so doing, he enlarged our understanding of the foundations of Western civilization by opening up new vistas into the past. In this portrayal, Miss Braymer makes vivid for the reader the classical cities of the ancient world, the achievements of archaeology, and, above all, the brilliant and intriguing man who so greatly advanced our knowledge.

From the dust jacket