[Rarebooks] Early English translation of Virgil, 1/50 copies

[Powers Rare Books]

I can offer:

Stanyhurst, Richard.  The First Four Books of The Aeneid of Virgil, In English Heroic Verse.  With Other Translations and Poems.  Edinburgh: [Edinburgh Printing Company], 1836.  One of fifty copies printed.  Woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces.  4to, bound in three quarter olive morocco and marbled boards by Bedford, gilt ruled panels on spine, t.e.g.  xxxvi, 168 pp.  Light rubbing to extremities, leather book label of Robert Samuel Turner (1818-1887).  A very good, clean copy.

Laid in is an autograph letter to Turner from Edward Arber, dated May 7, 1878:  “Dear Sir, It would be conferring a great favour on me, if you would kindly inform me who has the second copy of the Leyden edition of Stanihurst.  I only know of Mr. Christie Miller’s copy.  Your note quite revives in me the hope of doing the book, which I have long wished to do on general literary grounds.  I am certain that a reimpression does not diminish the sale-price of a scarce book: but contrariwise attracts more would-be purchasers for it.”

Arber (1836-1912) was an English literary antiquary, best known for his series of English Reprints <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_Reprints&action=edit&redlink=1> (1868–1871), which provided accurate reprints of rare Elizabethan and Restoration works to a wider public and available for general study. 

Turner is described by Seymour De Ricci (English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts, p. 164n) as “an extremely refined collector of the Beckford type, a great connoisseur of French, Italian and Spanish books.”  Although he did not collect widely in English books, he did have one of the finest copies of Shakespeare’s first folio, and his skill in linguistics probably contributed to his interest in this work.

 Stanyhurst’s translation of Virgil, first published in Leyden in 1582 and again in London the following year, is quite an oddity.  Robert Southey, in his Omniana, describes it thusly:  “[As] Chaucer has been called the well of English undefiled, so might Stanihurst be denominated the common sewer of the language.  He is, however, a very entertaining, and to a philologist, a very instructive writer.  His version of the First Four Books of the Aeneid is exceedingly rare, and deserves to be reprinted for its incomparable oddity.  It seems impossible that a man could have written in such a style without intending to burlesque what he was about, and yet it is certain that Stanihurst seriously meant to write heroic poetry.” 

The opening lines should give a sufficient taste of what follows:


That in old season wyth reeds often harmonye whistled

My rural sonnet; from forrest flitted (I) forced

Thee sulcking swincker the foile, though craggie, to sunder.

A labor and a travaile too plowswains hartily welcoom.

Now manhood and garboils I chaunt, and martial horror.

I blaze thee captayne first from Troy cittie repairing,

Lyke wandering pilgrim to famosed Italie trudging,

And coast of Lauyn: soust wyth tempestuous hurlwynd,

On land and sayling, by gods predestinate order:

But chiefe through Iunoes long fostred deadlye revengment.

Martyred in battayls, ere towne could stately be buylded,

Or Gods there settled: thence flitted thee Latine offspring.

The roote of old Alban: thence was Rome peereless inhaunced.



 The "Other Translations and Poems" noted in the title include several Psalms of David, "poetical conceits," and epitaphs.


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$750 plus shipping.

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