Certain Select Dialogues of Lucian Together With His True Historie; Translated from Greek to English by Francis Hickes
Oxford: Turner, 1634. First Edition. Hardcover. 1st edition in English. Contemporary full calf, rebacked (original spine chipped and worn but saved and laid down), boards a bit bowed, a tideline to first and last pages and some fox spots, 1/2“ tear to the B1 blank margin, chips to the B2 inner margin taking 5 letters, 1/2“ hole to the C2 blank margin, else good. Obstinately rare. ABPC lists one auction sale since 1975, (21 years ago in feckless modern cloth) so, no copy seen recently, and another is unlikely to be seen soon, or maybe again. Lucian (125–180) was the slyest of Romans, a satirist and rhetorician who sarcastically chastised magic, religious practices, superstition, and the occult, and did so by exercising a variety of means to forward his intentions, including his Dialogues, like the original version of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and his Histories (all of them fiction, and none of them the history of anything) like his impressively influential creation of science–fiction, with his travel to outer space, aliens, and interplanetary warfare. He was immensely popular throughout the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161–180), a forbearing emperor who was delighted by Lucian’s candor and craftiness. I think it’s just as well that Lucian died mysteriously in 180, the same year that Aurelius died, or Commodus would have had him killed. Or maybe he did. good. Item #810
Price:
$7,500.00