FALEREO (Demetrio), i. e., Demetrius of Phaleron:

Della Locuzione Volgarizato da Pier Segni Accademico della Crusca Detto L'Agghiacciato. Con postille al testo, ed esempli Foscani, conformati a' Greci. Al Sereniss. Signore, il Sig. Don Cosimo Medici, Principe di Toscana, suo Signore.

In Firenze, Nella Stamperia di Cosimo Giunti, 1603. FIRST EDITION of this translation. Small 4to, 205 x 148 mms., pp. [viiii], 280, contemporary vellum, letter in ink on spine, paste-down end-papers with notes in an 18th century hand; front hinge cracked, exposing spine, binding a little soiled. The orator Demetrius of Phaleron (c. 350 B. C. - c. 280 B. C.) was one of the most prolific authors of antiquity, noted in particular for his historical works and those on rhetoric. De Elocutione was first published in 1588, edited by A. P. Manutius. The translator here is Pier Segni, with numerous annotations to the text. The attribution of this work on style to Demetrius has been disputed and is sometimes attributed to an unknown writer in the second century A. D. Most libraries, however, catalogue the work under Demetrius' name.

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Book number: 7243

Catalogue: Literary criticism

Keywords: literary criticism style prose

[HUNTER (Joseph), Rev.]:

Who Wrote Cavendish's Life of Wolsey?

London: Printed for Richard Rees No. 62, Pall Mall, by Richard and Arthur Taylor, Shoe Lane, 1814. FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. [iv], 56, title-page in red and black, uncut, original boards, with printed label on front cover, hand-written paper label on spine; slightly soiled, spine repaired at early stage. With the bookplate, on front pastedown, stating that this volume was "Presented to the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution by Frederick Shum, Esq. F. S. A.", with Shum's name neatly added in manuscript. In 1814 the book Who Wrote Cavendish's Life of Wolsey? was published anonymously in a small print-run of just one hundred copies. The inscription in the copy on offer, however, gives the author's identity: "T. Broadhurst / 1816 / from the Rev. J. Hunter, / the Author". Here we see the author, the Rev. John Hunter (1783-1861), giving the volume to Rev. Thomas Broadhurst (1767-1851) in 1816, two years after the publication of the book. Both Hunter and Broadhurst lived in Bath; both were Unitarian ministers; and both were writers. Wrong or fragmentary attributions of Who Wrote Cavendish's Life of Wolsey? have been made over the years to, for example, the publisher Richard Rees and to simply "J. H." Eventually Sylvester Joseph Hunter (1829-1896), the son of the Rev. Joseph Hunter (1783-1861), stated in print that the writer of Who Wrote Cavendish's Life of Wolsey (1814) was indeed his father, for which see Sylvester Joseph Hunter's Brief Memoir of the Late Joseph Hunter, F.S.A., with a Descriptive Catalogue of His Separate Publications (1861), pp. 13-14. The inscription in this copy, however, is a satisfyingly contemporary first-hand attestation in manuscript to the authorship. At some point after Thomas Broadhurst's ownership of the volume, it went to the bibliographer Frederick Shum, the compiler of A Catalogue of Bath Books (1913), who was himself a Bath-based scholar. From Shum it went directly to the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. With the contemporary MS attribution, and the chain of distinctly antiquarian provenance, this is likely the best extant copy of a book important to historical scholarship.

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Book number: 3885

Catalogue: Literary criticism

Keywords: literary criticism biography literature

[RAPIN (Rene)]:

Observations on the Poems of Homer and Virgil. A Discourse representin the Excellencies of those Works and the perfections, in general, of all Heroick Act

London Printed by S. G. and B. G. [i. e., Sarah and Bennet Griffin] for Jonathan Edwin, at the Sign of the three Roses in Ludgate-Street [no date]. [?1672]. Small 8vo, 146 x 83 mms., pp. [viii], 128 (but with numerous errors in pagination), early 18th century calf, gilt borders on covers, rebacked, with old spine gilt in compartments with red leather label laid down; top 30 mms. of adverts leaf preceding title torn away, spine a bit rubbed and faded, but a very good copy. Rapin (1621 - 1687) proved to be a popular literary theorist, particularly in discussing epics, with British readers, both in English translation and in French. His choice, at the end of the volume of Homer in preference to Virgil was very much in tune with the prevailing models of literary theory at the time. Observations sur les poèmes d'Homère et de Virgile was published in Paris in 1669. It's unlikely that many scholars read George Saintsbury's History of Criticism (1900 - 1904), but his prose is entertaining: "I do not remember that Rapin ever lays it down that a hero must not be a black man; probably the French had not been afflicted--for I suppose they did not make Syphax black--with any poet daring enough to start the question. Be he does other things which, though les conspicuously, are quite as really silly. In the moral section of his comparison between Homer and Virgill he has too much of the Jesuit schoolmaster, with his reverence towards boys, to mention that terrible scene between Zeus and Hera which had already distressed the compatriots of Aristophanes and Martial, and which remains one of the earliest examples of absolutely perfect poetry in a particular kind. But he makes up for it. We have, of course, the 'wine-heavy, dog-eyed, hare-hearted' line to mourn over. How undignified of Homer to make Achilles anxious about the preservation of the body of Patroclus from corruption! How could Ulysses, with such an excellent wife and amiable son, waste time with Callypso and dangle after Circe, to whom the pudibund Rapin applies epithets which our Decorum prevents us from repeating , and for which he deserved to be both shipwrecked and turned into a Gryull...." ESTC locates two different states: This is R30126.

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Book number: 9843

Catalogue: Literary criticism

Keywords: literary criticism aesthetics prose

SHAKESPEARE. [HEATH (Benjamin)]:

A Revisal of Shakespear's Text, wherein The Alterations introduced into it by the modern Editors and Critics, are particularly considered.

London: Printed for W. Johnston..., 1765. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 216 x 135 mms., pp. xiv, [iv Contents and Errata], 573 [574 blank], dedication (to Henry Home, Lord Kames) leaf in cancelled state,contemporary straight-grain plum morocco, spine gilt in compartments with titles blocked in gilt, all edges gilt; joints a bit rubbed, some slight general wear to binding, but a very good copy, with the bookplate of the politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer Richard Austen [Rab] Butler (1902 - 1982) on the front paste-down end-paper of each volume. Heath (1704 - 1766) approves of Theobald's emendations but is rather less enthusiastic about those of Warburton. He was a notable literary scholar and book collector, and most of his publications were on classical literature. His book was one of two on Shakespeare to be purchased in 1770 by the Library Company of Philadelphia for its collection. Dr. Johnson made use of a number of Heath's comments for his own edition of Shakespeare.

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Book number: 7195

Catalogue: Literary criticism

Keywords: literary criticism textual criticism literature

TIRABOSCHI (Girolamo):

Histoire de la Littérature d'Italie, Tirée de l'Italien de Mr. Tiraboschi, et abrégée par Antoine Landi, Conseiller & Poëte de cour de Prusse, & Académicien Florentin.

Berne: [n. p.], 1784. 5 volumes. 8vo, pp. viii, 373 [374 blank]; 365 [366 blank]; 428; 536; 351 [352 blank], including half-title in each volume, original wrappers, uncut, spine worn, three wrappers detached, but a good example of a set as issued. Tiraboschi (1731 - 1794) produced 13 volumes of his Storia della letterature italiana, covering the origin and development of literature and the sciences from Etruscan times to 1700, between 1772 and 1782; an erudite and learned scholar, he was a bit long-winded, and Landi's abridgment has much to recommend it.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 2898

Catalogue: Literary criticism

Keywords: literary criticism prose French