"THE FIRST OF ITS KIND": RARE FIRST COMPLETE DIVINE COMEDY IN ENGLISH, 1802

DANTE. (BOYD, Henry, translator). The Divina Commedia… Consisting of the Inferno—Purgatorio—and Paradiso. London: A. Strahan for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1802. Three volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines. $17,500.

First edition of the first complete English translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, significant for "assisting to reestablish an audience for Dante, whose reputation had suffered a decline in the previous century" (ODNB), with frontispiece portrait of Dante by Thomas Stothard.

This set marks the first English translation of the whole Divina Commedia of Dante, with Boyd's attempt to capture Dante's terza rima, which in English is extremely difficult to sustain. In 1785, Boyd had published his translation of the Inferno alone, "the first of its kind" (DNB); here it is accompanied by the first appearances of the Purgatorio and Paradiso in English. The edition also includes preliminary essays and notes to each of the three books. Volume I contains a historical essay on 13th- and 14th-century Florence, a "Life of Dante" by Leonardo Bruni (Chancellor of the Florentine Republic in the century after Dante's death), and ends with a "Summary View of the Platonic Doctrine," an essay by Boyd "comparing the First Part of Scott's Christian Life, Chap. III with the view of futurity given by Dante." Volume III includes an "Extract from the Symposium of Plato, speech attributed to Socrates, on the Means of acquiring the Love of God, or the First Good," and ends with an index to places and persons named in the text. Bound without half titles. Lowndes, 589. CBEL III:229. First volume with early inked owner name. Faint traces of bookplate removal.

Contents overall clean with occasional light spotting; one leaf in volume I with closed tear touching text without loss. Expert restoration to joints and extremities, slight rubbing to marbled boards. A handsome set.