•  Old calf, rebacked and recornered; abraded with some loss on edges. Some waterstaining and browning; soiling and shallow chipping. Lacking final [62] ff., the index (only).

The book is illustrated with 100 engraved plates and numerous in-text engravings, as well as a frontispiece map of the Holy Land in each volume. The plates are mostly figural illustrations taken from paintings in catacombs and on sarcophagi, illuminated manuscripts, mosaics, ivory figurines, murals, etc. The title-pages are printed in black and red ink, and decorated with an engraved vignette.

•  Publisher's red cloth, stamped in gilt on the spines and front covers. Spines sunned and front cover of vol. II slightly sunned along fore-edge also; cloth of spines frayed at extremities and chipped in other places. Hinges (inside) of vol. I a little weak, stitching exposed; corners bumped with cloth damage; pages very shallowly bumped. Ex-library, with shelf labels on spines, institutional bookplates on front pastedowns, pressure-stamp to title-pages and one other page in each volume. Paper very good; pages clean and bright.  (24688)

Many translations of classical authors were published in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries highlighting parallels between Roman and British history. Those by John Clarke (1687–1734), a master at the Hull and Gloucester grammar schools, were also didactic, fitting into the “larger educational system under which . . . pupils would be encouraged in the extensive reading of classical texts rather than concentrating . . . on memorizing grammar.” His translation of Sallust was first published in 1734.

The text is printed double-column in parallel Latin and English, save for the biography in Latin written by Jean Le Clerc (1657–1736), and the dissertation onthe usefulness of translations in teaching in English by Clarke. For the reader's convenience, at the back there is anadvertisement for twelve more books by Clarke in and on Latin, sold by the publishers Rivington and Evans.

Provenance:  Ink inscription of Samuel Swan on p. [3] and verso of back free endpaper, and presentation to George Swan, Nov. 6. 1841, on front pastedown. “10/6" in ink on upper corner of title-page.

•  ESTC T131424. On Sallust, see: Oxford Classical Dictionary, 789–90. On Sallust in English, see: S. Gillespie, The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English: 1660–1790, pp. 286–89.   Contemporary calf, spine with raised bands and no labels, board edges gilt and with red speckled edges; reinforced and refurbished. Front free endpaper lacking, with offsetting from binding to title-page; dots of old red wax on front pastedown and title-page. Light foxing throughout, small dark spot in gutter of about 18 pages, and light waterstains across corners of ten; two small repairs to paper and a small hole affecting one word on two pages. Eight leaves short at outer margin. On the whole, a good copy, now strong.  (30610)

The title-page here has a most striking xylographic printer's device depicting a man looking up at the moon. The work is also decorated with a number of handsome, rather unusual woodcut historiated initials and headpieces. The text is in italic and roman with sidenotes.

Provenance: “D.M. Armstrong / Venice 1872.”

•  Not in Adams. Limp vellum with indications of lost ties; soiled, stained, and cockled with some holing (a natural hole in the vellum of the rear cover is repaired by sewing). Front fly-leaves with some holing and chipping, partially repaired with paper. Pages lightly waterstained and cockled with some shallow dog-earing, a little shallow tattering, and some browning and soiling, usually on the edges. Inked ownership inscription on front fly-leaf.

The title-page here is printed in red and black with an ornament signed “FH Inc[isit]”; the volume bears delicate head- and tailpieces and one elaborate initial embellished with ink by an early hand, whilethe engraved frontispiece features a bust of Sappho surrounded by ancient coins carrying her image and others related to Mytilene. The text is in roman and italic, the Greek and Latin appearing on opposing pages with copious notes filling the lower half of most. (A reissue of the Hamburg sheets was printed at London with a new title-page the same year, and issued anew with Wolf's Poetriarum octo the following year.)

Provenance:  Signature of Michael Wodhull (1740–1816), distinguished translator of Euripides and a dedicated book collector, dated 19 Nov. 1764; undated ink inscription to title-page of a Dr. Fernär(?); “Payne's sale” and other bookseller's notes in a 19th-century hand; late 19th-century bookplate of William E. Challinor.

Evidence of readership: “Nov: 7. 1766.” written in ink on p. 225 (the last of the text of the Carmina, before notes and fragments).

•  ESTC T47075 & Schweiger, I, 285 (the London reissue); Graesse, VI, 270 (“Londini” with note “d'autres ex. portent la rubrique Hamburgi”).   18th-century brown calf rebacked in mottled leather with gilt-lettered spine label and corners restored; board extremities rubbed and chipping, the old leather darkened where it meets the new. Paper variously age-toned; otherwise clean save for some minor foxing, some light upper-marginal and cross-corner old dampstaining, and the odd old spot or stain only. Small tear at the outer margin of one leaf and a nick in the top margin of another.  (29827)

Harold Lamb wrote the introduction. Of the author's attention to the minutiae of daily life in the Rome of A.D. 63–66 he writes, “The city itself appears in exact historical detail. Praetorians idling at their posts pass the time with their favorite dice games; girl attendants at Petronius' bath finish their duties punctiliously and break away to their own diversions as soon as the door curtain falls behind the master. Sienkiewicz knows how the dishes, including blackbirds, were prepared for a nobleman's feast; he knows what the oriental dancers wore on their heads and what the priests of Cybele carried in their hands, and what you see when you round a corner of the Vicus Sceleratus.”

Salvatore Fiume created the 35 drawings which were reproduced in three-tone process and mounted by hand. Giovanni Madersteig designed this edition, which is limited to 1500 copies, choosing a monotype Old Face font; the composition and printing of the text and illustrations was done by Madersteing at the Officina Bodoni in Verona.

The binding is full natural linen printed, in grey-blue, with an overall pattern derived from an old wood engraving. The signatures of Salvatore Fiume and Giovanni Madersteig appear on the colophon.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 302.   In the original slipcase, spine sunned with a long closed crack to paper and paper cracked/chipped; case good overall. Book with spine lightly faded and rear pastedown with small gold bookseller's label; volume in the original dust jacket (spine sunned to darker than sides are); near fine.  (22293)

This is this history’s first edition and was followed by 1579, 1593, and 1628 editions. It is printed with a woodcut printer’s device on the title-page showing the goddess Liberty with two books labelled “Bononia docet” (“Bologna teaches”) at her feet. The text is enclosed in double-ruled borders and simply ornamented with a few woodcut initials, one of which shows Juno being pulled in her chariot by peacocks.

•  Adams S1117; Soltész, Catalogus librorum sedecimo saeculo . . . in Bibliotheca Nationali Hungariae . . . S524. On Sigonius, see: Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., XXV, 82; and Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, II, 143–45. Full calf old style: Round spine with raised bands, accented in gilt beading; tan leather title label; fillets in blind extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils with blind double fillets beyond. Pages lightly washed, clean, and crisp: a few instances of staining, not obscuring text; a few short notations in ink and occasional worming in the margins, neither affecting text; ink stain on p. 95 obscuring letters without loss of sense. Inked title on lower edge, old style. Three ink ownership stamps on title-page. EEe3–4, the last two leaves of the index, are lacking. (4561)

An epitome of the “antiquarian” both in form and content, this is a marvelous compendium of royal history and lore.

plague’s symptoms are poetically described in all their horrific agony

•  ESTC N11495; Foxon S663; NCBEL, II, 485. On Sprat, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, LIII, 419–23. Uncut copy. Removed from a nonce volume, with sewing mostly gone, now in a Mylar folder. Some age-toning and spotting ranging from mild to moderate.

Click the images for enlargements.

Statius was called by Godolphin the “most eminent of the poets of his day”; the Encyclopaedia Britannica adds that he “was clearly the poet of society in his day as well as the poet of the court” (811). The Oxford Classical Dictionary notes that he was a favorite of Chaucer's, and he is, of course, an important character in Dante's Purgatorio — Dante regarding him as a Christian. His is the risen soul purged of sin for whom the earth quakes and the spirits shout, in Canto XXI, and he accompanies Virgil and Dante on the rest of their journey as their valued companion.

•  Brunet, V, 512; Dibdin, II, 424; Graesse 480; Willems 1166.   Contemporary vellum, spine with hand-inked title; vellum spotted, corners bumped, the effect of the spotting not so disturbing in hand as on screen. Front pastedown with private collector's rubber-stamp; front free endpaper with old repair. Back free endpaper with armorial pressure-stamp; pastedowns with small pencilled annotations, back pastedown with early inked numerals. A few scattered small spots, pages otherwise clean.  (27360)