"THE MOST HUMAN OF ALL BOOKS…"

AURELIUS, Marcus. The Roman Emperor, His Meditations Concerning Himselfe: Treating of a Naturall Mans happinesse; Wherein it consisteth, and of the meanes to attaine unto it. London: J.M. Dent, 1900. Octavo, contemporary full russet morocco, raised bands, elaborately git-decorated boards and spine, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, uncut. $4500.

Finely printed edition of one of the world's great classics, using the 17th-century first English translation by Meric Casaubon, beautifully bound by Bayntun-Riviere.

The Meditations have been considered by many "one of the great books of all time… [and as] the most human of all books" (Britannica). Wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance are the qualities that Aurelius, stoic and practical moralist, identifies as most essential for co-existence; his writings represent an early and influential philosophy of humanism. His Meditations "are a collection of maxims and thoughts in the spirit of the Stoic philosophy, which… breathe the purist sentiments of piety and benevolence" (Peck, 90). "No one would now dare write a book like Marcus Aurelius' To Himself, or, as we call it in English, The Meditations, and present it to the world as philosophy. He didn't either. But once published, these, his most intimate thoughts, were considered among the most precious of all philosophical utterances by his contemporaries, by all Western Civilization after they returned to favor at the Renaissance, and most especially by the Victorian English, amongst whom The Meditations was a household book" (Rexroth, Classics Revisited, 112). This translation by Meric Casaubon (son of the great scholar Isaac Casaubon), first published in 1634, is the first directly into English; Casaubon's elegant and scholarly translation was still being reprinted well into the 20th century. With frontispiece portrait and five plates.

A few instances of faint foxing to text, binding beautiful and fine.