This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/20/2022
DRYDEN, John (1631–1700), translator. The Works of Virgil: containing his Pastorals, Georgics, and Aeneis. London: Jacob Tonson, 1697. Large folio in fours (446 x 279 mm). (Some marginal staining at foot of fore edge to last few textual leaves, some pages browned, ††–††3 with large voids at lower margin repaired, else clean). Title–page in red and black, engraved frontispiece by Michael Vander Gucht, 101 engraved plates after Frantz Clein, chiefly by Wencelaus Hollar and P. Lombart (marginal repairs to frontispiece, corner repaired on title–page, repaired closed tear near gutter of title–page and frontispiece, few plates browned). Full contemporary paneled English calf (rebacked to period style, old repairs along edges, some leaning). Provenance: Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset (1643–1706), armorial engraved bookplate of the English poet. Sackville was a subscriber who had purchased a plate in his name (p. 10) at the cost of five–guinea. FIRST EDITION OF DRYDEN’S IMPORTANT AND SUPERIOR ENGLISH TRANSLATION, LARGE PAPER COPY (FIRST ISSUE) OWNED BY A SUBSCRIBER WITH AN ENGRAVING IN HIS NAME. One of the most elaborately illustrated books of 17th century England and the first illustrated folio of the classics issued by Tonson, a series he would continue through 1717. “The elaborate plates are useful and impressive visualizations of the multitudinous martial and pastoral scenes in the Aeneid, Georgics, and Bucolics…” (Hodnett, Five Centuries of English Book Illustration p. 56). Alexander Pope called it “the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language,” and Samuel Johnson claimed that “it satisfied his friends and silences his enemies”. A WONDERFUL ASSOCIATION COPY. Sackville was “a munificent patron to many men of letters, and a friend of John Dryden. [He] was himself a poet whose satires in heroic couplets anticipated and influenced the style of Alexander Pope” (Britannica). Grolier, Wither to Prior 325; Macdonald 33a; Wing V616. From the private library of a distinguished Chicago book collector.