Longinus Dionysus (2 results)

Full Leather Hardback. Condition: Very Good. Fifth Edition, Corrected and Improved. 1757. Fifth edition, corrected and improved. 220pp. Cassius Longinus (c.213- 273 AD), also known as Dionysius Cassius Longinus was a Greek rhetorician and philosophical critic. The author of 'On the Sublime' is unknonw but generally credited to Longinus. It is a Greek work of literary criticism dated to the 1st century and is regarded as a classic work on aesthetics and the effects of good writing. The treatise highlights examples of good and bad writing from the previous millennium, focusing particularly on what may lead to the sublime. The book is bound in contemporary full leather boards with gold titling on a leather label and five raised bands on the spine. The case of the book is in very good condition with some expected scuffing to the leather on the boards. There is wear with a small boit of loss to the leather on the tips of the top corners and about 1/8" is missing from the top of the spine. The top 1" of the leather on the front and rear spine edges is split with a little loss and there is a thin split of about 1" on the bottom of the spine edges. The contents are tight and clean apart from a few small marks and some staining on the last page (page 220). The front endpapers and pages i to xxv have some old insect damage on the fore margin that varies in extent, but the text is not affected. Pages 116 onwards have a few snall insect holes on the botttom margin. There is a small hole near the middle of the rear fixed endpaper together with a little damage to board. There is no inscription.

Late eighteenth century mottled calf, edges stained green. Front hinge cracked, front paste-down lacking. Ownership inscription on title crossed out, two leaves of paper pasted over fly-leaf, hiding ownership inscription (Robert Ashworth, Merrion Square, Dublin, AD 1796). Fifth edition. Includes Smith's account of the life, writings and character of Longinus. William Smith (1711-87), editor and translator, was also known as "Thucydides' Smith," is best remembered for two books, his translation of Thucydides and this translation of Longinus.