Sign-In
Cart
Stealing Athena
Paperback
Historical FiguresAncient Greece
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN13: 9798257722530
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Apr 20 2026
Pages: 452
Weight: 1.32
Height: 0.91 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Apr 20 2026
Pages: 452
Weight: 1.32
Height: 0.91 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
From the bestselling author of Leonardo's Swans comes a sweeping historical novel of art, beauty, power, and one of the world's greatest cultural controversies. For two hundred years, the Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Sculptures have stood in the British Museum at the center of a global debate. In Stealing Athena, Karen Essex tells their story through two remarkable women divided by centuries but united by ambition. At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, young Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin, uses charm and daring in Constantinople on the Sultan himself to help secure permission for her husband's goal strip the Parthenon of its treasures. Two thousand years earlier, Aspasia, philosopher, courtesan, and partner to Athens's most powerful man, Pericles, plays a key role as the city builds glorious monuments destined to change history. Rich with romance, intrigue, scandal, mythology, and high stakes, Stealing Athena brings two hidden women behind history's headlines brilliantly to life. Stealing Athena firmly entrenches Karen Essex as one of the top historical novel writers of our time.
- Bookreporter.com Historical fiction at its finest.
-St. Petersburg Times A great adventure story. . . . Essex delves deeply into the lives and times of her characters in settings as diverse as ancient Greece and 18th-century Constantinople, France and Great Britain, and her women characters are spirited and memorable.
-The Times-Picayune Stealing Athena expounds on the weight of the past, the power of art, and the strength of women who exercised free will even when they had the fewest rights.... Uniquely relevant.
-Los Angeles Times
-St. Petersburg Times A great adventure story. . . . Essex delves deeply into the lives and times of her characters in settings as diverse as ancient Greece and 18th-century Constantinople, France and Great Britain, and her women characters are spirited and memorable.
-The Times-Picayune Stealing Athena expounds on the weight of the past, the power of art, and the strength of women who exercised free will even when they had the fewest rights.... Uniquely relevant.
-Los Angeles Times
3 different editions
Also available
Also from
Essex, Karen
Also in
Historical Figures
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich
Metaxas, Eric
Paperback
$11.99
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
$10.99
The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution
Wegman, Jesse
Hardcover
$27.00
The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel: Romanovs, Revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan Who Fueled the World
Brunt, Douglas
Hardcover
$28.80
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
$26.60
Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours
Cogliano, Francis D.
Onuf, Peter S.
Hardcover
$26.99
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown
Foster, Ann
Hardcover
$29.69
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
Sherrill, John
Boom, Corrie Ten
Paperback
From $4.99
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
$37.99
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
Strauss, Gwen
Paperback
$19.00
A Thousand Shall Fall: The Electrifying Story of a Soldier and His Family Who Dared to Practice Their Faith in Hitler's Germany
Mundy, Susi Hasel
Paperback
$16.14
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
$33.24
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War
Bell, Jason
Hardcover
$31.34
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
Brunt, Douglas
Paperback
$18.99
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
$23.74
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Bourdain, Anthony
Paperback
$17.09
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paperback
$18.04
The Confessions of Samuel Pepys: Private Revelations from Britain's Most Famed Diarist
de la Bédoyère, Guy
Hardcover
$31.50
The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
Rosen, Jeffrey
Paperback
$19.00
Solo and Together: Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an Enigmatic Life and Marriage
Hansen, James R.
Hardcover
$38.00
American Prometheus (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Oppenheimer
Sherwin, Martin J.
Bird, Kai
Paperback
From $14.99
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
Beals, Melba Pattillo
Paperback
From $7.99
Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection
Faber, Toby
Paperback
$19.00
The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Luzzatto, Sergio
Hardcover
$31.50
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Paperback
$18.04
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Hardcover
$66.50
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
$34.99
The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
Molloy, J. T.
Donohue, John Chick
Paperback
$18.04
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Paperback
$22.80
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
From $9.99
Miracles in American History, Volume Two: Amazing Faith That Shaped the Nation: Adapted from William J. Federer's American Minute [With 2 Paperbacks]
Federer, Susie
Federer, William J.
Paperback
$19.00
Tomboy Bride, 50th Anniversary Edition: One Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West
Backus, Harriet Fish
Paperback
$18.04
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
Von Drehle, David
Paperback
$18.04
The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century
Harrington, Joel F.
Paperback
$19.95
Master of the Senate (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Caro, Robert A.
Paperback
From $14.99
The Forsaken Founder: Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot Who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up to Slavery, and Survived the Reign of Terror
Greenberger, Scott S.
Hardcover
$28.50
The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President
Collinsworth, Eden
Hardcover
$27.00