(Bindings, English. Charles II)

Estimate

12,000 - 18,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

Homer (Thomas Hobbes, Trans.). Homer's Illiads in English ... to which may be added Homer's Odysseys Englished by the Same Author. London: Printed by J[ames]. C[ottrell]. for William Crook, at the Green Dragon Without Temple-Bar, 1676 — The Travels of Ulysses; wherein is related How He Got from the Ciconians and Lotophagians, where his Men Eat Forgetfulness. Coming to the Land of the Cyclops, Polyphemus Eat Six of his Men ... With many other Passages, Strange and Wonderful. Translated out of Greek by Mr. Hobbes of Malmsbury, Author of the Leviathan ... The Second Edition. London: Printed by J[ames]. C[ottrell]., 1674
ink, paper, leather

Two volumes bound in one, 12mo (6 x 3 1/4 in.; 152 x 83 mm). Illiad: Table of contents A2–A3), publisher's advertisements (A4–A6). Natural paper fault in lower margin of 2A2 slightly affecting signature mark, light scattered foxing in first two quires, leaves 2C3.4 and 2D3.4 transposed. Odyssey: Medial blank F4 present, publisher's advertisements (F5–F8r). Fine contemporary polished red morocco paneled gilt with Charles II's crowned cipher (CC addorsed between the Prince of Wales's feathers), the spine gilt in six compartments lettered in the second, and repeating the cipher in the others, the board edges gilt with a floriated roll, plain endpapers, two flyleaves, edges gilt, presumably bound by Samuel Mearne; spine lightly sunned.

Provenance

Charles II, King of Great Britain (bound for him as above, with an early pressmark "153" in black ink on the upper pastedown) — Lionel Tollemache, Fourth Earl of Dysart (Ham House pressmark "L.B.V.43" on an oblong octagonal ticket mounted on the upper pastedown and signature [partially erased] on first title-page) — An eighteenth-century reader has written "Read through Hobbes's Homer at Bawdsey Octbr. 1753" in ink on the verso of upper flyleaf and "from P292 the leaves misplac'd" in pencil on the lower free endpaper verso) —Raymond and Elizabeth Hartz (sale, Sotheby's New York, 12 December 1991, lot 151). acquisition: Purchased at foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

Literature

Iliad: Wing H2550; ESTC R2651; Macdonald & Hargreaves 79. Odyssey: Wing 2558a; ESTC R29487; Macdonald & Hargraves 76. Binding: Davenport, English Heraldic Book-Stamps 109

Catalogue Note

Charles II's copies of Hobbes's Iliad and Odyssey, both first editions, the latter being a second issue with the same sheets as the 1673 edition but incorporating a cancel title-page. When the octogenarian Hobbes was asked why he decided to undertake these translations, he is said to have replied: "Because I had nothing else to do."