“THE WORKS OF PLATO MAY BE PROPERLY CONSIDERED THE SCRIPTURES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD”: FIRST EDITION SET OF THE FIRST COMPLETE WORKS OF PLATO TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH

PLATO. The Works of Plato, viz. His Fifty-Five Dialogues, and Twelve Epistles, Translated from the Greek. London: Thomas Taylor, 1804. Five volumes. Quarto, late 19th-century marbled boards rebacked and recornered in brown calf gilt, raised bands, 19th-century marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. $22,000.

First edition of the first complete English translation of Plato’s works, prepared by the leading Platonist of his day, still considered unequaled. Five quarto volumes, handsomely bound.

"Amidst a great diversity, both of subject and treatment, [Plato's] dialogues are pervaded by two dominant impulses: a love of truth and a passion for human improvement. While nowhere is a definite system laid down, it has been truly said that the germ of all ideas can be found in Plato" (PMM 27). Thomas Taylor was the leading English Platonist of his day: "In his knowledge of Plato… he has never been equaled by any Englishman, and he is still the most important disseminator of ancient philosophy in the history of English and American literature" (Axon, Thomas Taylor, 11). "The mystical neo-Pythagorean mathematics he esteemed the true science, which the Arabians and their European successors had corrupted; and he rejected the common opinion of an essential antagonism between the Platonic and Peripatetic philosophies… his frank avowal of philosophic polytheism created a strong feeling against him" (DNB). Taylor incorporated into his monumental translation nine dialogues as previously translated by Floyer Sydenham; the remainder he translated and fully annotated himself. "Thanks to the learning and industry of Messrs. Sydenham and Taylor, we have now the whole of the works of this wonderful philosopher brought within the reach of the English public, with a great variety of learned notes and instructive dissertations. The works of Plato may be properly considered the Scriptures of the ancient world" (Allibone, 2361). Bound with half titles. Errata slip in Volume III. Lowndes, 1877. Owner signatures on title pages.

Interior generally quite clean, faint marginal dampstaining to a few leaves in first and second volumes. Marbled boards with just a bit of expert restoration. A handsome wide-margined copy.