Chapman. (Nonesuch Press: One of 75 Specially Bound Copies).

ELLIS, Havelock:

Edité par London: Nonesuch Press Bloomsbury: Specially Bound Limited First edition, 1934

A propos de cet article

8vo., [xiv], 146pp. + [2pp], title-page with pictorial vignette in bistre and brown, and the chapter numbers are embraced by typographical ornaments, the volume was designed by Francis Meynell, set in Centaur and Arrighi, and printed by the Cambridge University Press on Van Gelder paper watermarked "Nonesuch," with the endpapers displaying bright examples of the Curwen Press unicorn watermark., top edges blocked in gilt. Specially bound in deluxe full niger morocco, spine with gilt-stamped title and series of gilt-ruled raised bands. A VG+ clean bright copy, with minimal wear, of this fine Nonesuch Press production, produced in commemoration of the tercentenary of the death of poet and dramatist George Chapman. This is a Limited Numbered Edition, No.29 of 700 printed, this copy is one of 75 SPECIALLY BOUND COPIES bound in full niger morocco. (first 75 copies were specially bound). McKitterick/Rendall/Dreyfus: History of the Nonesuch Press, 93). George Chapman (c.1559 1634) was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets of the 17th century. Chapman is best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and the Homeric Batrachomyomachia. George Chapman was born in Hitchen, a country town near London. He may have attended Oxford, although he claimed to have been selftaught. He spent a few years in the household of a nobleman and in 1591-1592 was engaged in military service on the Continent. Chapman became an important literary figure with the publication of his first work, The Shadow of Night (1594). Chapman's reputation as a man of letters was firmly established by Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595) and his continuation of Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander (1598), both of them amatory, erotic poems in the vein of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis (1593). He began writing for the stage about 1595 and in the following 10 years composed a number of comedies, including A Humorous Day's Mirth (1597), the earliest example of the "comedy of humours" closely identified with Ben Jonson. Chapman's best-known dramatic work, however, is the heroic tragedy Bussy D'Ambois (1604), which celebrates the lofty aspirations of Renaissance individualism. Despite his success as a poet and a dramatist, Chapman led a very insecure existence. In 1600 he was imprisoned for debt, and in 1605 he suffered the same punishment for his part in Eastward Ho!, a play written in collaboration with Jonson and John Marston. For a time he was patronized by Prince Henry; when Henry died unexpectedly in 1612, Chapman found himself again in precarious straits. Chapman's literary energies after 1613 were devoted almost exclusively to his monumental translation of Homer, which he had begun many years earlier and which he considered his most significant literary achievement. The completed translation, published in 1624, has been immortalized by John Keats's sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1816).

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Chapman. (Nonesuch Press: One of 75 Specially Bound Copies).
• Éditeur: London: Nonesuch Press Bloomsbury: Specially Bound Limited First edition
• Date de parution: 1934
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: Special Edition
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Fine bindings
  • Literature
  • Private Press