The Republic of Plato.

prize-binding awarded to the artist Delmar Banner

A handsome copy of most-famous of the Socratic dialogues translated into English with notes and introductory essays by Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford from 1855 until his death.

Known originally as the Politeia, its title derives from the Greek for city-state (polis), meaning 'constitution' or 'community of citizens', and gave rise through Cicero (res publica) to the modern term republic. The text explores the nature of justice, explaining that the same qualities which order the hypothetical, ideal polis also govern the immortal soul. The resultant discussion contains one of the earliest examples of a written thought-experiment in Plato's allegory of the cave, which solidifies his theory of forms that it is the intelligible world perceived through reason which is the basis of all knowledge, rather than physical, sensory experience.

It 'has truly been said that the germ of all ideas can be found in Plato' (PMM).

This copy a prize-binding for Magdalen College, Oxford awarded to the German-born British artist Delmar Banner (1896-1983), best known for his portrait of Beatrix Potter which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and for representing Great Britain in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics.

Third edition; 8vo (23 x 16 cm); ownership inscription to front free endpaper verso, old bookseller's ticket to front pastedown, occasional offsetting; early 20th-century maroon calf prize-binding for Magdalen College, Oxford, gilt arms to upper cover, covers ruled in gilt, gilt spine in 6 compartments, top-edge gilt, a little rubbed with slight loss, slight staining to spine, very good; [8], ccxxix, [1], 379, [1]pp.