[Rarebooks] fa: JOHN OWEN - EPIGRAMMATA (EPIGRAMS) 1612 - Nicholas Okes - Four Parts in One

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 12. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/hemmxnd

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


John Owen: Epigrammatum Joannis Owen Oxoniensis Cambro-Britanni Libri Tres, Ad D. Mariam Neville, Comitis Dorcestriae filiam. Editio Quarta. Londini [London]: Ex officina Johannis Legati, sumtibus Simonis Waterson, 1612. [BOUND WITH:] Epigrammatum Ioannis Owen, Oxoniensis Cambro-Britanni. Ad doctissimam heroinam, D. Arabellam Stuart. Liber singularis. Editio secunda. Londini : Ex officina Johannis Legati, sumtibus Simonis Waterson, 1612. [BOUND WITH:] Epigrammatum… Ad Henricum Principem Cambriae duo. Ad Carolum Eboracensem unus, Editio Prima. Londini: Ex officina Nicolai de Quercubus [i.e., Nicholas Okes]…,1612. [BOUND WITH:] Epigrammatum… ad Tres Mecaenates, libri tres, ad Edoardum Noel equitem et baronetum unus, ad Guilielmum Sidley equitem et barontetum alter, ad Rogerum Owen equitem auratum tertius, Editio Prima. Londini: Ex officina Nicolai de Quercubus [Nicholas Okes]…,1612. Small 12mo (13.25 cm) bound in early/period calf with gilt-lettered spine label; printers' woodcut devices to title-pages, woodcut end-pieces and musical notation.

Early English collections of Latin epigrams; four works bound in one volume. The first two works were issued together, but the latter two, which appear here in their first editions, were published separately. Binding with rubbing, wear to the spine ends and corners, cracking to the front joint; contents with light toning, occasional small spots and light touches of soiling, stain to the fore-edges of the first few leaves, text block cracked at the gutter (but secure) at leaf C1 of the last work, else generally clean and sound. Early owner's signature of Jacobus [James] Harewell on the first title-page and the foot of the final text leaf.

John Owen, Welsh epigrammist, was born in 1563 or 1564 to a sheriff of Caernarvonshire. He was educated at Winchester College and was later a schoolmaster at King's School, Warwick. He died in obscurity in 1622. Or maybe 1628. "Although several of his epigrams are earlier, Owen’s first volume did not appear till 1606… His success was immediate and extraordinary; his admirers hailed him as the equal, if not the superior, of Martial… His first three books were dedicated to lady Mary Neville, daughter of the earl of Dorset; his second volume, a single book, to Arabella Stuart; the third volume to Henry prince of Wales and his brother Charles; and the last volume to his three “Maecenates” Sir Edward Noel, Sir William Sidley and Sir Roger Owen… Owen exercises his wit on many subjects. We meet the familiar figures of the poor author, the degenerate noble, the courtier, the lawyer, the physician, the atheist, the hypocrite, the miser, January and May, the uxorious husband, the cuckold… There are epigrams on Winchester college, the university of Oxford, Christ Church, the Bodleian library, Saville’s edition of Chrysostom, Holland’s translation of Pliny… Many are addressed to Welsh kinsfolk, to personal friends, to patrons actual or prospective, to prominent people of the day. Among others, are bishop Bilson, his former headmaster at Winchester, archbishop Abbot, archbishop Williams, Vaughan, bishop of London, Burleigh and Salisbury, lord chancellor Ellesmere, Coke, lord Dorset, Lucy, countess of Bedford, the earl of Pembroke, Sir Edward Herbert, Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Henry Goodyer, Sir Henry Fanshawe, Daniel the poet, Sir John Harington, Sir Thomas Overbury…" (Cambridge History of English and American Literature).