CALLIMACHUS [of Cyrene]; William Dodd

The Hymns of Callimachus, translated from the Greek into English verse, with explanatory notes. To which are added, Select epigrams, and the Coma Berenices of the same author, Six hymns of Orpheus, and The Encomium of Ptolemy by Theocritus. By William Dodd, ...

London: printed for the translator, and sold by T. Waller, and J. Ward, 1755. First Edition. 4to. Twentieth-century parchment-backed, paper-covered boards; [24],212,[16]p. Some external soil and wear; blank margins of final three leaves with small losses at gutter, else internally fresh and Near Fine. Includes list of subscribers and General Index; six vignettes in text by Toms and Jeffreys.

In The Papers of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society for February, 1982, Johnsonian scholar A.D. Barker presented an illuminating account of Dodd's use of subscription publications, Ponzi-style, to cover his regular indebtedness. The Hymns of Callimachus was the first of these – a project for which he began collecting subscriptions some three years before setting pen to paper. The project was seen to completion, but only through the solicitation of subscriptions for further works that never saw publication (see A.D. Barker, "The Early Career of William Dodd, PCBS v.8. no.2 (Feb 1982), 217-235). This early behavior Barker provides as evidence that Rev. Dodds' eventual (1777) execution by hanging, for forging a £4200 bond in the name of Lord Chesterfield, was perhaps not the surprise many of his contemporaries – including Samuel Johnson, who worked diligently to secure clemency for the dissipated parson – thought it to be. A very nice copy in a utilitarian, but not unsightly, binding. ESTC T144813.

Price: $450.00

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