OVID (George Sandy - translator). Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished, Mythologiz'd, and Represented in Figures. (1640 - FIFTH PRINTING OF THIS TRANSLATION AND THE FIRST TO INCLUDE HIS UNFINISHED TRANSLATION OF THE AENEID)

AUTHOR: OVID (George Sandy - translator). 

TITLE: Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished, Mythologiz'd, and Represented in Figures. 

PUBLISHER: London: Printed by J. L. for Andrew Hebb, 1640. 

DESCRIPTION: FIFTH PRINTING OF THIS TRANSLATION AND THE FIRST TO INCLUDE HIS UNFINISHED TRANSLATION OF THE AENEID. 1 vol., 13 3/8 x 9 1/4".), (xii)303(ix), includes the initial and final blank, frontispiece and engraved title and 15 plates by Salomon Savery, after Frantz Clein. Bound in fine contemporary full sprinkled calf over cords, covers ruled in blind, later gilt lettered black morocco spine label, edges sprinkled red, 17th century signatures of John Rolle and Dennyce Rolle to front endleaf.

CONDITION: Head and foot of spine fine, hinges fine, some minor worming to spine, a well preserved and an unusually clean fresh wide margined copy.

REFERENCE: STC 18968; Lowndes III, 1745.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: An important English translation of Ovid’s profoundly influential ‘Metamorphoses,’ a loosely connected series of mythological tales that share the common narrative ingredient of transformation. After having begun his version in England, the translator, George Sandys (1578-1644), sailed to Virginia, where he planted and served on the government council, and it was there that he completed his work on Ovid, which was first published in its entirety in 1626. Dryden characterized Sandys, who was a skillful manipulator of meter, as the best versifier of the previous age, and Pope said that “English poetry owed much of its present beauty” to Sandys' work. The 1632 printing of Sandys' "Metamorphoses" was the first to contain the full-page engravings at the beginning of each book drawn by Francis Klein and engraved by Salomon Savery. This edition also contains the first (and only) book of his unfinished translation of the Aeneid which he never completed. Klein (also Clain, Cleyn, or Kleyn, ca. 1595-1658) was an artist of many talents. He was employed for some time by Christian IV of Denmark, then emigrated first to Rome and later to England, where he designed tapestries for King James I, as well as decorated mansions and painted murals.