P. OVIDII NASONIS FASTORUM libri VI. Cum notis selectissimis variorum. Accurante C. Schrevelio.

OVIDIUS NASO, Publius.

Edité par Londini ex officinâ J.H. venales prostant apud T. Newborough ad insigne Pilæ Deauratæ in Coemeterio Divi Pauli, 1699

A propos de cet article

8vo, pp. [xvi], 352; a good copy in contemporary calf, early label on spine (a bit rubbed; head of spine slightly chipped). Apparently the first English edition of Cornelius Schrevelius's edition of this text. This copy has the signature 'E. Fenton' on the half title, which must surely be that of the poet Elijah Fenton (1683-1730), famous for having collaborated with Pope on his translation of Homer's Iliad in the early 1720s. Fenton translated four books (1, 4, 19 and 20) for Pope, but contemporaries were largely kept in the dark about the contribution which he and William Broome had made to the project. Fenton was from Staffordshire, and went up to Jesus College Cambridge in 1700. After university he became a schoolmaster, then a private secretary; his poetry began to appear in 1707, and he gathered work by editing books and assisting public figures such as James Craggs. Any poet of this period, especially one classically educated, would have been conscious of Ovid as a model. I have checked Fenton's signature against samples amongst the Pope's Homer MSS in the British Library: this does look very like those, although the greek 'e' in Fenton is a bit different from the secretary 'e' found there. In subsequent years this book came into the Evelyn family library (it clearly never belonged to John Evelyn himself), and was sold in the third Evelyn sale at Christie's on 15 March 1978, as lot 1114 (bought by Maggs for £38). Wing O667: there appears to be no copy in the British Library, and whilst there are others in the UK, this edition is scarce elsewhere, with just two copies in North America (Cincinnati and Yale), and three in Australia and New Zealand.

N° de réf. du vendeur 28177

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: P. OVIDII NASONIS FASTORUM libri VI. Cum notis selectissimis variorum. Accurante C. Schrevelio.
• Éditeur: Londini ex officinâ J.H. venales prostant apud T. Newborough ad insigne Pilæ Deauratæ in Coemeterio Divi Pauli
• Date de parution: 1699
• Édition: Edition originale
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Poetry