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Boccacio; [Balguy, Charles (trans.)].
ON HOLD (Sa) The Decameron, or Ten Days Entertainment of Boccace.
Publisher: Printed for R. Dodsley, at Tully’s Head in Pall-Mall, London;
Date of Publication: 1741
Stock Code: 14917
First edition. Octavo, pp., vii, [1] errata, 591, [1] blank, plus engraved frontispiece of the author, publisher’s mark to title-page, woodcut head- and tailpieces throughout. Early nineteenth-century calf; spine on five raised bands, ornamented in gilt to spine, titled to red morocco spine leather; double gilt fillets to boards; gilt dentelles; marbled end-papers. All edges gilt. Former ownership inscriptions in contemporary hand of one ‘Frances Field’ and ‘Fanny Trevelyan’, nineteenth-century ‘C. W.’ monogram stamp to title-page. Joints cracking but spine and hinges holding firm, binding rubbed. Light foxing and toning to contents. A fair, square copy. The third attempt at a complete translation of the Decameron into English (after John Florio in 1620 and John Savage in 1704), this version omits tales III.x and IX.x, and references to homoeroticism in V.x. This translation was the basis for many editions of the nineteenth century. The publisher, Robert Dodsley, was a poet and bookseller who published a number of canonical translations in the 1740s including Christopher Pitt’s translation of the Aeneid (1740), William Melmoth’s Letters of Pliny (1746), and Don Quixote (1742). Dodsley issued only one edition of the Decameron. £180.00