The Whole Works of Homer, Prince of Poetts, in his Iliads and Odysses
London: [Richard Field and William Jaggard] for Nathaniel Butter, 1616. First Edition. First issue of the first collected edition. Two works in one volume. Engraved architectural title by William Hole portraying Achilles, Hector and the head of Homer, engraved portrait of Chapman on title verso, engraved plate to the memory of Prince Henry, etched title to the Odysses with full-length figure of Homer. Without blank GG8 in the Iliads and blank R8 in Odysses, but with the final blank Ii8. Woodcut ornaments. Paper flaws to A1, A2 and Cc2 of Iliads and to O4 and T2 of Odysses not affecting text, small rust holes to *2, B4, and S1 of Odysses, light dampstain to Ii4-Ii6 of Odysses on upper margin just spilling into first lines of text, sporadic light foxing and soiling, else a very clean, well margined, and beautiful copy of a book that normally looks like a used pizza box. Full seventeenth-century calf, spine in six compartments decorated in gilt, few points of strengthening but not rebacked and still sturdy. Ex-Vernon Watney (bookplate on front pastedown); Frances Winchcombe (ownership signature to the recto of memorial plate); Jane Douglas (ownership signature to the verso of memorial plate). STC 13624; cf. Grolier Langland to Wither 35-36; Pforzheimer 169-170. Item #1272
Chapman's complete Homer translation fundamentally transformed Elizabethan and Jacobean understanding of Greek epic poetry. Working from Latin and French intermediary translations rather than directly from Greek, Chapman produced a vigorous, idiosyncratic English Homer that prioritized dramatic energy over literal accuracy. His fourteen-syllable "fourteeners" for the Iliad and heroic couplets for the Odyssey created a distinctly English epic voice that influenced Milton and subsequent translators while establishing Homer's centrality to English literary culture.
This first collected edition represents the culmination of Chapman's decades-long engagement with Homer, begun with his 1598 partial translation of the Iliad. The memorial engraving to Prince Henry, who died in 1612, situates the work within Jacobean court culture where classical learning signified political and intellectual authority. Chapman's Homer functioned both as scholarly achievement and as assertion of English literary capability to rival continental translations. The translation's influence extended across centuries (Keats's sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1816) testifies to its enduring power) while modern scholars recognize Chapman's work as foundational to the English classical tradition despite his occasional misreadings of the Greek. Copies in original binding and exceptional condition are rare, most having suffered the deterioration typical of seventeenth-century vernacular literature subjected to sustained use rather than preservation as scholarly monument.
Price: $54,000.00