Written by the celebrated Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos, the Mythology of Cyprus is an immensely readable and truly entertaining journey through the pagan world of ancient Cyprus, when the island really was the Land of Aphrodite, goddess of love.

First published in 1981, the book was a pioneering exploration of the way ancient Greek mythology was understood in a regional location such as Cyprus. As Michael Paraskos explains in his new introduction, the book was written at a time when few academics bothered to pay much attention to Cyprus, and many Cypriots themselves preferred to see their...