DANTE ALIGHIERI.

£2,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Vision; or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Second and preferred edition of one of the most important translations of Dante of the Romantic era, following the scarce first edition, which appeared in 1814 in such a diminutive format that it was barely legible. This edition was improved with corrections, an additional index, and notes.Reverand Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844) began his milestone verse translation in January 1797, starting with the Purgatorio before turning his attention to the Inferno in 1800, which would be the part he published first in 1805-6. Cary eventually completed the translation in 1812 and published it at his own expense in 1814, unable to find a publisher due to low sales. The work passed by largely unnoticed until it received enthusiastic praise from Coleridge during one of his lectures in 1818. Reinforced by a glowing review in the Edinburgh Review from Ugo Foscolo, this led to the sale of 1,000 copies in less than 3 months and the publication of the second edition in 1819."This work is his chief claim to fame, and it remained a standard text well into the twentieth century, despite the fact that the number of translators of the work between 1782 and 1966 amounted to eighty-four. Cary's version was admired by Wordsworth, Keats, Lamb, Coleridge, Macaulay, and Ruskin" (ODNB). In his 1966 critical bibliography of the Commedia, G. F. Cunningham commented: "Cary's version still holds its place as a minor classic, thanks to the fact that its author was a

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