HOMER. (The Whole Works of Homer.) The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. Never before in any language truely translated. With a coment upon some of his chiefe places; donne according to the Greeke By Geo: Chapman. At London printed for Nathaniell Butter. [1616?/1624?]
Engr. title, engr. dedication leaf, [26], 341, [9]; without general title, leading & final blanks. BOUND WITH: [Homer's Odysses. Translated according to ye Greeke], [8], 193, [1], 195-376 (i.e. 374), [4]; without engraved title, leading blank & 2 additional blanks (A1, A2, R8, Ii8); AND: The Crowne of all Homers Worckes Batrachomyomachia, engr. title, [10], 143, 148-179, [1], 201-207, [5]. Folio; leaves 18 x 28cm. Very small tear from lower corner of 'Odyssey' I2 not near text. A very clean copy with wide margins in full blind-stamped calf by C. Lewis (1786–1836); sl. rubbing to hinges, edges & head & tail of spine. Ownership inscription of trade unionist, politician, & noted book collector John Burns dated 'July 2, 1918'. a.e.g. v.g.
¶ESTC S106768, S119240; three works issued in two. Textually complete but bound without most blanks. There are numerous errors in paging (as usual) including 350-51 omitted in the numbering of part 2, meaning that there are actually 374 rather than 376pp. in the Odyssey. This is not recorded by ESTC but reported by Yale, Harvard, and University of Toronto. Chapman was the first to translate Homer's works in their entirety into English, a monumental undertaking that took him 25 years. Over the course of these two and a half decades, Chapman would publish his segments as he completed them with 7 books of the Iliad (the 1st, 2nd, and 7th-11th) appearing in 1598, and books 1-12 in 1609. All 24 books under the title The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets were entered into the Stationers' Register on 8 April 1611, and the 24 books of the Odyssey on 2 Nov. 1614. According to ODNB the first 12 books of the Odyssey had been published earlier but are rarely found in this separate state. In 1616, these translations of the Iliad and Odyssey were united in one volume with an engraved title page reading 'The Whole Works of Homer, Prince of Poets, in his Iliads and Odysses', which includes a portrait of Chapman on the verso. A separate engraving of two columns dedicated to the memory of Henry, Prince of Wales - who died of typhoid fever in 1612 - is also included. This volume includes the 1616 collected reissue of the Iliad and Odyssey made up of the original 1611 Iliad and 1615 Odyssey sheets but without the collective title. According to the ESTC, the titlepage of the Iliad is usually cancelled by the general titlepage and a dedication leaf, and the titlepage of the Odyssey is also usually cancelled. In this case, instead of the general titlepage, there is the rarer 1611 Iliad titlepage signed 'William Hole Sculp.' with recto headline HOMER (rather than the later HOMERS), and the engraved Prince Henry dedication leaf is also present. This volume omits the titlepage for the Odyssey; though according to University of Chicago's ongoing Bibliotheca Homerica Langiana, this is 'usually lacking'. Also included here is the first edition of Chapman's final Homer translation Batrachomyomachia (c.1624) and its engraved titlepage with portraits of Homer and Chapman (in earliest state with WORCKES rather than WORKES). The DNB describes Chapman's Homer as 'one of the great achievements of the Elizabethan age, a monument of skill and devotion'. Chapman's translations, admired by Pope and Coleridge, and inspiring Keats's famous sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. This is a beautiful and rare volume containing all three of Chapman's Homers in their earliest complete states in exceptional condition.