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Reprint. In English. Hard cover, 8vo, in black cloth elaborately blocked in gold to the spine, with title and decoration, illustrated endpapers in the style of early Italian woodcuts, top edge trimmed, others untrimmed, printed on watermarked, heavy laid paper, rubricated title page, xxxviii plus 269 pp. Reprint of the "Essay on Petronius" is reprinted from MacMillan/ E.P. Dutton edition of 1922, pp. vii-xxiii. Translator's introduction pp.xxiv-xxxviii, also taken from that edition. Chapters One to One Hundred Forty-First, pp. to 253, plus Notes pp. 255-269. CONDITION: Very Good Plus. Dent to front board fore edge (about 1 1/2 inches). Pencilled signature and bookplate to the half title, dated 1928. Otherwise sound, clean and bright. **The AUTHOR, Caius Petronius Arbiter, was the "Arbiter of Taste" to the infamous first century Roman Emperor Nero. This early epic, or romance, describes the vagrant life given over to various misadventure by a trio of young students, Encolpios, Ascyltos and Giton, It recounts their journey from Cumæ (near Naples) south to Crotona. Some will find intimations of later fabled road trip adventures of Don Quixote or the Three Musketeers in these older tales, but in this case with more licentious detail; not for your pearl-clutching great aunt! Part of the Black and Gold series of classical reprints by Boston publishers Boni and Liveright, who, in addition to popularizing a catalogue of "classics," also first published some of the most important authors of the modernist era, before going bankrupt in 1929.
Ref: FICT00 9152
$50.00