Lempereur

1759 — Three volumes. 12mo. [157 x 89 mm.] Engraved frontis, illustrations, and vignettes by Eisen, engraved by Lempereur and Aliamet. Tasteful contemporary full red straight grained morocco leather binding in the Syston Park style. Marbled endpapers. All edges gold gilt. A clean and crisp copy of an eminent Barbou classic, probably from Sir John Hayford Thorold's Syston Park library. Plautus was a famed Roman writer of comedies, His plays, adapted from those of Greek New Comedy, are popular and vigorous representations of middle-class and lower-class life. Written with a mastery of idiomatic spoken Latin and governed by a genius for situation and coarse humor, Plautus' comedies achieved a great reputation. Characteristic of his plays are the stock comic figures: the knavish, resourceful slave, the young lover and his mistre ss, the courtesan, the parasite, and the braggart soldier. His plots and characters have had great influence upon later literature, with adaptations and imitations by many writers, e.g., Molière, Corneille, Jonson, and Shakespeare. Twenty-one plays survive, more or less complete: Amphitruo (Amphitryon), Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi, Casina, Cistellaria, Curculio, Epidicus, Menaechmi, Mercator, Miles gloriosus, Mostellaria, Persa, Poenulus, Pseudolus, Rudens, Stichus, Trinummus, Truculentus, and Vidularia (in fragments) - Columbia Encyclopedia. For some interesting tales and comments on Plautus see: Hadas, 'Ancilla'. A brief history of the Barbou Classics is given by Schweiger (II 1269). In 1742 Lenglet de Fresnoy persuaded Coustelier to start a series which was meant to be a French rival to the Elzeviers - even surpassing them in tersms of schoalrship and typography. Though this effort soon exhausted itself, it was revived by Jean Joseph Barbou in 1753. Seven of these attractive little books appeared in 1753-1755, and though there were more issued in the next decade, there was not enough market interest to support a sustained publishing program. They still stand as a monument to French scholarship and typography. An elegant and correct edition. Brunet IV:709; Harwood III:233; Cohen 373; Cohen-de Ricci 808. Very scarce. **PRICE JUST REDUCED! W154