a Welshman in Bratislava
OWEN, John.
Epigrammatum Ioannis Oweni, Cambro-Britanni Oxoniensis, editio postrema correctissima posthumis quibusdam adaucta & instructa gemino indice, addita sunt in fine Exercitia Memoriae Poetica, in usum adolescentiae alicunde collecta.
Bratislava: Joh. Adam. Kästneri, 1680 [but probably 1683].
12mo (130 × 75 mm.), pp. [vi], 212, [72], 44, plus engraved portrait frontispiece. Occasional light browning and spotting, early ink underlining (quite heavy, but neat) with minor annotations. Contemporary vellum, spine lettered in early manuscript, somewhat soiled. A very good copy.
An exotic imprint of one of the bestsellers of continental Europe. Though he was a Welshman educated at Oxford, Owen's Epigrams were one of Britain's most succesful literary exports. "It was Owen, not Shakespeare, whom seventeenth-century Europeans knew and admired. Continental editions of Owen outnumber the English by a ratio of over three to one. Poole-Wilson has identified forty-five continental editions of Owen's Latin text before 1800" (Oxford DNB, citing "A best-seller abroad: the continental editions of John Owen" by Nicholas Poole-Wilson in Theatrum Orbis Librorum; liber amicorum presented to Nico Israel). The "Exercitia" section at end has separate pagination and part-title dated 1683. However, the register is continuous, suggesting that the edition was actually published in 1683.
COPAC lists copies at the National Library of Wales and Glasgow only. This edition not found in OCLC, not in Poole-Wilson's 1989 hand-list of contiental edition (see above) but subsequently located.
£150.00
US$297.87*
* Given as a guide only. Based on an exchange rate of £1 = US$1.985799 for the day 25 July 2008 but liable to fluctuate.
25 July 2008