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The First Clark printing of Hobbes celebrated translation, the second edition overall, and for the first time much corrected and amended. With the original first issue dedication leaves and with the new engraved title-page for Harper using designs of the first. Additional and important prefatory material is included here, some for the first time. With an elaborately engraved title-page using designs from the first edition, 3 engraved folding or double-page maps and plans of Greece, Sicily and Syracusa, and 2 other engraved plates, title-page printed in red and black. Folio in fours, bound in full contemporary mottled calf of the period, the spine with raised bands, the compartments of the spine with elaborate period gilt tooling filling the compartments, one compartment for the lettering label, [46], 357, (1, ad leaf), [10] Table pp. A very handsome copy in its original binding unrestored, original end-leaves intact, an elusive survival thus, the text block quite clean and unpressed throughout, expected light wear to the binding, a few joints starting, two very early ownership markings of J. Alston (most probably from the Scottish/English Borderlands area) and T. Bowles. A very honest copy. VERY SCARCE EARLY PRINTING OF THIS HIGHLY IMPORTANT TRANSLATION OF THE GREEK MASTERWORK. Hobbes was the second English translation of Thucydides, but the first done directly from the Greek. It remains even today one of the standard texts for understanding the great Greek historian. Although Hobbes's Greek was imperfect and inaccuracies crept into his text, the work still maintains very considerable merits. J.S. Phillimore, in a pamphlet entitled "Some Remarks on Translations and Translators," has said, "Read him in the famous speeches.and Jowett seems a nerveless paraphrase." Hobbes first published this translation (the second in English) in 1628 (or 1629). Most of the sheets were sent to Rychard Mynne and reissued, as here, with a new engraved title page, and with the date of the dedication changed as if it were a new work. Seller Inventory # 31843
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