Priapeia;
or the Sportive Epigrams of Divers Poets on Priapus now First Completely Done into English Prose from the Original Latin with Introduction Notes Explanatory and Illustrative and Excursus: to Which is Appended the Latin text.
Stock Code 113252
Athens [but London], Erotika Biblion Society, 1888 [but 1889].
Original price
£1,750.00
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Original price
£1,750.00
Original price
£0.00
£1,750.00
£1,750.00
-
£1,750.00
Current price
£1,750.00
One of 250 copies - printed for private circulation. A near-fine copy of a Burton rarity. One of 250 numbered copies, published for members of the Erotika Biblion Society, founded in 1888 by Harry Sidney Nichols and Leonard Smithers, publishers and supporters of Decadent writers including Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde.
The first printed work of the Society, published under the false imprint of Athens. Although the title page gives the publication date as 1888, the introduction states that circumstances delayed its production until 1889, and that the publishers decided to retain the existing volume numbering and title page so as not to break the Society's sequence of volumes. The Latin translation, by Sir Richard Burton, is one of his last works; the introduction and notes are by Smithers.
Burton and Smithers published a 4to edition in 1890, but the two collaborators were dissuaded from revealing their names owing to the 'very literal nature of the material', instead publishing under the pseudonyms 'Outidanos' and 'Neaniskos' respectively (Penzer, pp.150-153).
First edition, sole printing, number 159 of 250 copies, printed for private distribution only; 8vo; minor offsetting to endpapers, very occasional faint spotting and light finger-soiling to margins, else unmarked internally; early 20th-century half navy morocco over blue velvet-covered boards, top edge red, others uncut; near-fine.
Penzer, p.153; Casdada 91 (for 4to edition).
The first printed work of the Society, published under the false imprint of Athens. Although the title page gives the publication date as 1888, the introduction states that circumstances delayed its production until 1889, and that the publishers decided to retain the existing volume numbering and title page so as not to break the Society's sequence of volumes. The Latin translation, by Sir Richard Burton, is one of his last works; the introduction and notes are by Smithers.
Burton and Smithers published a 4to edition in 1890, but the two collaborators were dissuaded from revealing their names owing to the 'very literal nature of the material', instead publishing under the pseudonyms 'Outidanos' and 'Neaniskos' respectively (Penzer, pp.150-153).
First edition, sole printing, number 159 of 250 copies, printed for private distribution only; 8vo; minor offsetting to endpapers, very occasional faint spotting and light finger-soiling to margins, else unmarked internally; early 20th-century half navy morocco over blue velvet-covered boards, top edge red, others uncut; near-fine.
Penzer, p.153; Casdada 91 (for 4to edition).
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