Canongate boss Jamie Byng remembers how their new myth series began

I first had the idea for a myths series while smoking a cigarette outside our Edinburgh offices in 1999, contemplating our second tranche of Pocket Canons. The original Pocket Canons had been a great success. We'd persuaded writers as diverse as Alasdair Gray, Bono and the Dalai Lama to introduce individual books of the King James Bible. Our hope was that, by getting contemporary (and often secular) writers to explain why the Bible was not simply a dull religious text, we'd bring this large and imposing tome to a new audience. And we did. The trouble was that we had run out of hits. Now That's What I Call the Bible Volume Three was never going to happen, even if I had heard that Bob Dylan was up for introducing Leviticus.

Then it hit me. Myths. Not only had myths mesmerised me as a boy (I was particularly attached to a battered blue paperback of Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes), but I had subsequently come to realise how they underpinned all storytelling. Weren't all writers therefore interested in myth?

Our initial idea was simple: we'd approach writers and ask them to retell a myth of their choosing, in 25,000 to 30,000 words, in whatever style they wanted. But what we set in motion almost seven years ago has turned into one of the most complex and ambitious publishing projects ever undertaken. When we launched the series at the Frankfurt Book Fair in mid-October, we did so in partnership with 32 publishing houses, stretching from Brazil to Iceland, from Korea to Russia, from China to Latvia. The publishing programme we've mapped out already stretches to 2012. Lots of superb authors have either written, or made clear they want to write, for the series.

Yet when I went to Frankfurt in October 1999, Myths was still no more than a dream. I decided to start by approaching publishers rather than authors, as I figured I'd increase my chances of attracting interesting writers if I had a number of committed international partners. From each country, I talked to one publisher whom I respected about the sorts of authors who might want to get involved. I returned from the fair with a handful of verbal commitments. We were off.

In subsequent years, I have written and spoken to dozens of writers about myths, and the series has changed to accommodate new ideas of what it should be. One of my favourite examples of this is how Karen Armstrong came to write her overview of myth and its meanings. It was 2001, and she was giving a talk on the Buddha at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Just before her event, I was chatting with Michael Ondaatje about the series and trying unsuccessfully (yet again!) to persuade him to come on board. We ended up going to Armstrong's event together. In the middle of her talk, she was asked by the chair, Richard Holloway, whether she could explain to the audience the distinction between mythos and logos. She proceeded to give a typically brilliant explanation of why myth was so important, why our alienation from it was so troubling. In just a few words, she articulated the entire raison d'etre of the series. As soon as her talk was over, I asked her whether she would be interested in writing a book for it. She said yes.

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