The revised 2nd edition of Guerber, The Book of the Epic (1913), with reset and lightly revised text, and illustrated with a completely different selection of reproductions from paintings of various artists (the Beowulf chapter still contains none). The original edition's Introduction and Foreword by J. Berg Esenwein have been removed. The 1941 copyright is assigned not to H. A. Guerber, but to Adele E. Guerber, who is thus assumed to be the reviser. The Beowulf story includes some brief quoted passages from J. R. Clark Hall translation, with one error in them corrected from the 1913 edition.

The retelling begins:

Hrothgar, King of Denmark, traces his origin to Skiold, son of Odin, who as an infant drifted to the shores of Denmark. This child lay on a sheaf of ripe wheat, surrounded by priceless weapons, jewels, and a wonderful suit of armour, which proved that he must be the scion of some princely race. The childless King and Queen of Denmark therefore gladly adopted him, and in due time he succeeded them and ruled over the whole country. When he died, his subjects, placing his body in the vessel in which he had come, set him adrift.

                                  Men are not able
Soothly to tell us, they in halls who reside,
Heroes under heaven, to what haven he hied. (272-73)

And ends:

Seeing his master about to be crushed to death, Wiglaf—one of Beowulf's followers—now springs forward to aid him, thus causing sufficient diversion to enable Beowulf to creep beneath the dragon, and drive his sword deep into its undefended breast! Although the monster's coils now drop limply away from his body, poor Beowulf has been so sorely burned by its breath that he feels his end is near. Turning to his faithful follower, he thanks him for his aid, bidding him hasten into the cave and bring forth the treasure he has won for his people, that he may feast his eyes upon it before he dies.

                              "Fare thou with haste now
To behold the hoard 'neath the hoar-grayish stone,
Well-lovèd Wiglaf, now the worm is a-lying,
Sore-wounded sleepeth, disseized of his treasure.
Go thou in haste that treasures of old I
Gold-wealth may gaze on, together see lying
The ether-bright jewels, be easier able,
Having the heap of hoard-gems, to yield my
Life and the land-folk whom long I have governed."

Sure that the monster can no longer molest them, the rest of the warriors press forward in their turn, and receive the farewells of their dying chief, who, after rehearsing the great deeds he has accomplished, declares himself ready to close honorably an eventful career. When he has breathed his last, his followers push the corpse of the dragon off a cliff into the sea, and erect on the headland a funeral barrow for Beowulf's ashes, placing within it part of the treasure he won, and erecting above it a memorial, or bauta stone, on which they carve the name and deeds of the great hero who conquered Grendel and saved them from the fiery dragon.

So lamented mourning the men of the Geats,
Fond-loving vassals the fall of their lord,
Said he was kindest of kings under heaven,
Gentlest of men, most winning of manner,
Friendliest to folk-troops and fondest of honor. (279-80)

Fry, GR, and MO1 (p. 163) incorrectly represent this book as a reprint of Guerber's 1913 Book of the Epic. The 1941 version is a revised edition, with textual revisions being light, but containing a completely different series of illustrations by different artists.

Fry and GR also give the title of the book's relevant section as "Anglo-Saxon Epic." In both editions, the section is titled "Epics of the British Isles," and the Beowulf retelling (the only pre-Norman Conquest content item in the section) is titled "Beowulf."

MO2 conflates The Book of the Epic with a different work by Guerber, her Myths and Legends (1909); the two works had been differentiated in MO1.

BAM (from the 1966 reprint, New York: Biblio & Tannen).