Etched in the wedge-shaped letters known as cuneiform on clay tablets, Gilgamesh stands as the earliest classic of world literature. In The Buried Book, David Damrosch describes the career of George Smith, a self-taught Assyriologist, who one momentous afternoon in 1872 was working at the British Museum, going through a pile of Layard's clay tablets. Suddenly, Smith realized that he was reading about "a flood storm, a ship caught on a mountain, and a bird sent out in search of dry land."Daring adventurers, fearless explorers, ancient kings, gods, and goddesses come to life in this riveting story of the first great epic--first to the world for 2,500 years and rediscovered in the nineteenth century.