VIRGIL; John MARTYN ( translator ). Georgicarum libri quatior. The Georgicks of Virgil, with an English Translation and Notes.

£1,000 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

Virgil for Botanists – with Early Colour Printing VIRGIL; John MARTYN ( translator ). Georgicarum libri quatior. The Georgicks of Virgil, with an English Translation and Notes. London: Richard Reily for the editor. 1741. 4to. Contemporary English panelled calf, gilt morocco lettering-piece to spine, board-edges roll-tooled in gilt, edges speckled red; pp. xxii, 403, [1 (errata)], 4, [1 (blank)], [10 (index)], with 13 copper-engraved plates (5 of which printed in colour and finished by hand, the others with contemporary hand-colouring); woodcut headpieces and initials, extensive commentary in two columns; headcap wanting, a few scuffs and abrasions to boards, top-edge slightly dusty; a few marks; else a handsome copy; a few contemporary manuscript corrections, contemporary ownership inscription ‘P. Foley’ to tipped-in blank facing plate after p. 352, eighteenth-century bookplate of John Stackhouse, with three annotations in his hand, nineteenth-century armorial bookplate of E.W. Stackhouse ( see below ). First edition of this translation of Virgil’s Georgics , a four-part agricultural didactic poem, by the lapsed Cambridge professor of botany John Martyn, illustrated with early examples of colour-printed botanical engravings, our copy from the library of notable botanist and classicist John Stackhouse and passed by descent to his son, E.W. Stackhouse, inheritor of much of Narcissus Luttrell’s library. Botanist and correspondent of Linnaeus John Martyn (1699–1768) was the found

• Binding: Hardcover

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