Bibliotheca Classica; or, a Classical Dictionary, containing all the Names in antient Authors
LEMPRIERE], [John
[With] Tables of Coins, Weights and Measures in Use among the Greeks and Romans.
AN INSPIRATION TO KEATS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FAUX-VELLUM
Published: Reading Printed for T. Cadell, 1788
Stock code: 21779
Price: £1,975.00
8vo., First Edition, on laid paper, neat eighteenth-century signature on title, some light age-staining (mainly marginal); firmly bound in nineteenth-century faux-vellum BY MYERS OF READING, sides with double frame border in gilt and red, back with five flat bands ruled in gilt, second compartment lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, uncut, last few leaves of Tables chipped and dog-eared (but without material loss), lower margins of same leaves lightly damp-marked in blank margins, expertly rebacked to style with old backstrip laid down, an unusually well-preserved crisp, clean copy.
With the errata leaf at end. With the nineteenth-century engraved armorial bookplate of Sir James R Andrew Clark, and the binder's ticket, on front paste-down. Since it was bound by Myers it may well have been sold in the town of publication. 'Lempriere's Classical Dictionary is the first of a new kind of manual: the rendering of a body of knowledge not easily accessible in any other form into a system of alphabetical articles for the use of those who lack the time or the learning to seek out the sources; the 'Oxford Companion' series is a distinguished descendant'. (Printing & the Mind of Man). Lempriere (c.1765-1824) was born in Jersey and remained a schoolmaster most of his life. QUITE APART FROM ITS INTRINSIC UTILITY, HIS DICTIONARY ACHIEVED IMMORTALITY SINCE IT PROVED AN IMPORTANT SOURCE OF INSPIRATION TO KEATS. Extremely scarce. PMM 376.