Details
SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe. -- HOMER. Opera graece & latine. Edited by Stephan Bergler. Padua: 1791-92.
2 volumes, 8°. (Mainly marginal worming in volume I). Contemporary vellum over paper boards. Provenance: Sir Percy Florence Shelley, who inherited the books from Mary Shelley in 1851 (bookplates in both volumes).
A MOST IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY
Annotated in pencil in Shelley's hand on the last free endpaper of the second volume (containing the Odyssey Batrachomyomachia and Hymns). The notes comprise a translation of Odyssey, book xiii, lines 79-80: 'A gentle sleep fell on his eyelids then A wakeless sleep most sweet, likest to death'. Below references to three other pages, 'Human Nature p. 474', 'Again 480', 'Prometheus 534', with a drawing of a figure, possibly Prometheus. On the facing pastedown faint drawings of foliage (oak leaves?), caricature of a face and two profiles. The volume has marginal pencil scoring on at least 9 pages, including a note against Odyssey xviii lines 129-130 [there is no more feeble creature on earth than man] 'so one would think'. Presumably acquired in Italy, as it is marked at the back 'venti Zechini'. Occasional pencil scoring in volume I possibly not in Shelley's hand.
Homer inspired Shelley greatly and was one of his most treasured authors. He actually translated the Hymns into English. It is not known which Greek edition he used for his translation. (This copy has a mark against one line of the Hymn to Mercury.)
When Shelley was reading the Iliad on 6 July 1817 he wrote to Hogg 'I am now in the 23rd book; you can imagine the wonders of poetry which I have enjoyed in the five preceding books ... Familiarity with Homer increases our admiration and astonishment - I can never believe that the Odyssey is a work of the same author' (Letters I, p. 545). In an undated note in the Journals (in 1816?) he considers various editions of Homer containing the Hymns, but seems then to have been unaware of this edition. The translation of the Hymns to Mercury was completed on 14 July 1820 (Mary Shelley Journals ed. P.R. Feldman & D. Scott-Kilvert, p. 326).
After Shelley's death, with Hogg's encouragement and help from afar, Mary had been reading Homer in the evenings at Genoa (letter from Hogg 30 Oct. 1823). She then told Hunt 'In the company of Homer I am with one of his [Shelley's] best friends - and in reading the books he best loved I collected his acquaintances about me' (Journals op.cit. p. 471). It seems very likely that this was the copy she used.
2 volumes, 8°. (Mainly marginal worming in volume I). Contemporary vellum over paper boards. Provenance: Sir Percy Florence Shelley, who inherited the books from Mary Shelley in 1851 (bookplates in both volumes).
A MOST IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY
Annotated in pencil in Shelley's hand on the last free endpaper of the second volume (containing the Odyssey Batrachomyomachia and Hymns). The notes comprise a translation of Odyssey, book xiii, lines 79-80: 'A gentle sleep fell on his eyelids then A wakeless sleep most sweet, likest to death'. Below references to three other pages, 'Human Nature p. 474', 'Again 480', 'Prometheus 534', with a drawing of a figure, possibly Prometheus. On the facing pastedown faint drawings of foliage (oak leaves?), caricature of a face and two profiles. The volume has marginal pencil scoring on at least 9 pages, including a note against Odyssey xviii lines 129-130 [there is no more feeble creature on earth than man] 'so one would think'. Presumably acquired in Italy, as it is marked at the back 'venti Zechini'. Occasional pencil scoring in volume I possibly not in Shelley's hand.
Homer inspired Shelley greatly and was one of his most treasured authors. He actually translated the Hymns into English. It is not known which Greek edition he used for his translation. (This copy has a mark against one line of the Hymn to Mercury.)
When Shelley was reading the Iliad on 6 July 1817 he wrote to Hogg 'I am now in the 23rd book; you can imagine the wonders of poetry which I have enjoyed in the five preceding books ... Familiarity with Homer increases our admiration and astonishment - I can never believe that the Odyssey is a work of the same author' (Letters I, p. 545). In an undated note in the Journals (in 1816?) he considers various editions of Homer containing the Hymns, but seems then to have been unaware of this edition. The translation of the Hymns to Mercury was completed on 14 July 1820 (Mary Shelley Journals ed. P.R. Feldman & D. Scott-Kilvert, p. 326).
After Shelley's death, with Hogg's encouragement and help from afar, Mary had been reading Homer in the evenings at Genoa (letter from Hogg 30 Oct. 1823). She then told Hunt 'In the company of Homer I am with one of his [Shelley's] best friends - and in reading the books he best loved I collected his acquaintances about me' (Journals op.cit. p. 471). It seems very likely that this was the copy she used.