Alexander Pope, Homer

First edition of Pope's magnificent translation of and commentary on The Illiad.

Sold as a set of six.

• Homer (Greek).
• Translated by Alexander Pope (English).
• London: W. Bowyer for Bernard Lintott, 1715-1720.
• [58], 63, [2], 40, [2], 47-186, [2], 189-218, [2], 223-254, [2], 321-354, [2], 357-356, 295-318; [4] 321-658 (with errata); [8] 661-948; [6], 957-1258, 1249-1296; [6], 1303-1598, [2], 1609-1630; [6], 1633-1749, 1758-1882, [32] pages, collated complete.
• Quarto.
• Illustrated with black-and-white engravings: frontispiece and two-page map to v. 1, folding frontispiece to v. 2, folding plate to v. 5, other smaller engravings and woodcuts throughout.
• Bound in full contemporary speckled calf, gilt tooling to spine and red spine labels, raised bands, marbled endpapers and sprinkled edges.

Pope's translation of The Illiad is frequently considered "his best work" (Stephen, 63), but it is even more than that: it is the pinnacle of the Augustan Age, when British literary and philosophical interests turned to the works of Ancient Rome and Greece. This edition is wonderfully emblematic of the intensity of those interests. "No author had ever made anything approaching the sum which Pope received" through subscriptions for his translations of Homer, notes Leslie Stephen (62); Pope would later remark that, "thanks to Homer," he "could live and thrive, indebted to no prince or peer alive" (63).

Each volume of this copy of The Illiad features the bookplate of William Downes, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, affixed over the earlier bookplates of Robert Shafto of Benwell; the latter appears to be a relation of 18th-century British politician Bobby Shafto. In stately full contemporary calf bindings in original condition without restoration, scarce thus.