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Original Leaves from Famous Books
Show more"Milton's brilliant and profound mind, which illuminated so many aspects of life in one of the most important of eras, the seventeenth century, still challenges us today, three centuries later, in our struggle for human and individual liberty. To deep thought Milton added consummate art. Milton's position as the "greatest" pamphleteer and as the author of the "greatest" ode in the English language, the "supreme" monody, and the "mightiest" sonnet in any language, is rarely questioned. Dr. Johnson once commented, "Milton, madam, has a genius that could cut a colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads on a cherry stone." Paradise Lost is generally conceded to be Milton's greatest work, but he himself, as well as Coleridge and Wordsworth, considered Paradise Regained to be his masterpiece. This work was published in 1671, four years after Paradise Lost, upon which he had spent at least twenty years. It is not a sequel to other. The text is concerned with St. Luke's account of the temptation of Christ and is written in less ornate and figurative language than was used in Paradise Lost. The poem Samson Agonistes is memorable for the fusion of a Semitic theme, Greek tragic manner and matchless English verse. In 1900, Cobden Sanderson, the mystic, established the Doves Press. His books were, according to his own words, "...to be symbols of a vision of Cosmic Order, Order wrought in Rhythm and touched with Beauty and Delight." He wished "...to print in suitable form some of the great literary achievements of man's creative and constructive genius." The Roman type of Jenson was the model for the Dove Press. Pollard calls it the finest roman type in existence. Ransom, commenting on the Doves Press books, states, "They approach dangerously near to absolute perfection in composition, presswork, and page placement." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
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Show more".Virgil was the national poet of Augustan Rome. Under the patronage of rich and powerful Maecenas he was enabled to live the tranquil and secluded life which so well fitted into his own ideals and temperament. In 37 B.C. he finished the Bucolica, which idealizes the farm life which he knew and loved so well in his youth. His second great work was the Georgica, a didactic, realistic poem. Both were written to make farm life in the country so attractive that a migration would start from the city. In the later period Virgil wrote his epic, the Aeneid, to glorify Rome and its rulers. This work bears a close relationship to the writings of Homer. Virgil in these poems assumes the tone of the prophet: 'Rome has equally a mission to fulfill, which is to establish peace and order, and to rule the world through law. ' Virgil excels, in all his writings, in 'that subtle fusion of the music and the meaning of language which touches the deepest and most secret springs of emotion'. His influence on Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth and Tennyson is clearly evident. Dante selected Virgil to represent human wisdom and to act his own guide through the Inferno" (Ege, Otto F.) "In the year 1750, John Baskerville decided to print, as an avocation, '?.books of consequences ?.and which the public may be pleased to see in an elegant dress and to purchase at such a price as will pay the extraordinary care and expense that must necessarily be bestowed upon them'. Seven years later his publication, this 'Virgil', appeared. According to Macaulay, it 'went forth to astonish all the librarians of Europe'. The type of the day was modernized, the press improved, the paper 'woven' instead of 'laid' (a radical departure), and the freshly printed sheets were pressed between hot plates to 'glaze', thus giving such 'perfect polish that we could suppose the paper made of silk rather than a linen'." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
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Show more"James Thomson, like Virgil, with leisure assured by patrons and political pension, had unusual opportunities to observe nature and to write and rewrite his poems. The various parts of The Seasons first appeared between the years 1726 and 1730 and in their final polished form in 1744. With their swelling phrases and Latinized diction, these poems of Thomson are superficially Miltonic. Dr. Johnson wrote of Thomson, "The reader of The Seasons wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shows hum that he never felt what Thomson impresses". Today we still enjoy the sensitiveness to light and movement, the ultimate knowledge of the ways of animals and birds, and the ability of Thomson in his Seasons to lure us from a real world to imaginative reverie. With a subtle appreciation of quiet rural life is coupled a conception of a God in nature, as well as an unquestioning in the God of orthodox Christianity, and there is also an apparently unrelated enthusiasm for economic progress in Britain. "It seems paradoxical that Bodoni, the founder of "classic" formalism in printing, chose to print Thomson's romantic Seasons in sumptuous format and to include the following in the dedication to his patron, David Steuart, of Edinburgh: "If I particularly wish immortality to any of my works it is to this, that the testimony of my respect and gratitude for a person of so much worth and eminence may be handed down to future ages". Bodoni is often called "The King of Typographers and the Typographer of Kings". According to Peddie, Bodoni "incontestably represents the highest point of aestheticism that can be reached by typography." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
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Show more"Early in 1509, the translation of Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff by the English priest, Alexander Barclay, was first printed in England. This work of Barclay's called 'Ship of fooles of the world' is more a ship of fools of sixteenth century England than it is a translation of the earlier work. It presents an understanding of the poverty-stricken priest and court-ridden life of the common people during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Both the original author, Brant, and the translator, Barclay, held to the general design 'to ridicule the prevailing follies and vices of every rank and profession under the allegory of a ship freighted with fools. Fools are evil and malicious people to be displayed and scolded'. Barclay installs himself as a captain, 'I am the first fole of all the hole navy'. These writers found hundred and ten categories, even in those simple days, to ridicule. It is done in delightful verse. Zeydal states that this book 'played an important role in outmoding medieval allegory and mortality and in directing literature into the channels of the drama, the essay and the novel of character'. The woodcuts which added much to the popularity of Barclay?s translation are crude copies of those who appeared in the original Basle edition, often attributed to young Dürer" "John Cawood, who printed this second edition of the Ship of fooles in 1570, was appointed Royal Printer by Queen Mary in 1553. Strangely enough, he retained this lucrative post under Queen Elizabeth, who, however, made him share the honor and privileges of this title with another printer, Richard Jugge" (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
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Show more"Francesco Petrarch, 1304-74, as the 'first modern man', inaugurated the Renaissance. Symonds states that in Petrarch ' . . . the particular is superseded by the universal . . . the citizen is sunk in the man . . . his language has lost all traces of the dialect, and his verse fixes the poetic diction for all time in Italy.' This volume of seven-hundred sonnets and canzoni reveals the idealized love of the poet for Laura over a period of forty years and forms ' . . . one of the most splendid bodies of amorous verse in all literature . . . remarkable for exquisiteness and finish'. 'What little I am, such as it is,' the poet said, 'I am through her.' Petrarch's writings gave 'dignity and importance to living this side of the grave '. Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio are considered the three 'fountains' of Italian literature, although Petrarch judged his Latin writings more important than these immortal sonnets written in Italian" "Gabriel Giolito, the most prolific printer in Italy during the sixteenth century, printed about eight-hundred and fifty books from the date of founding his press in 1539 to his in 1578. In the first twenty-one years, before 1560, twenty-two editions of Petrarch's poems bore his imprint. Giolito also exercised great influence on his contemporaries and successors in the form of and decoration of books, especially of title pages" (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
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Show more"This first complete edition of Haklyut's Voyages gathers and describes the "Principal Navigations, Voyages, Tarrifques and Discoveries of the English Nation Made by Sea or Overland to the Remote and Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth at any time within the compass of these 1600 years". This new and enlarged work extended into three volumes. The third volume deals with America and comprises eighty-one voyages to the new continent, ranging from the period of discovery to the end of the sixteenth century. Here we find the ringing tales of achievements of the Cabots, Cartier, Frobisher, Raleigh and Drake. Inspiration from this important and exciting compilation of England's searchings "further than ever any Christian hitherto hath pierced" was, as has been frequently stated, largely responsible for Britain's subsequent domination of the sea. The modern Hakluyt Society has issued over two-hundred volumes, each dealing with a separate voyage, with and introduction by an eminent scholar. The printing of a volume as large as this was a major undertaking and required all the material and financial resources of Robert Barker (also the printer and one of the sponsors of the first issue of the King James Version of the Bible), as well as the help of George Bishop, a wealthy alderman of the city of London and deputy printer to the Queen, and of Rolfe Newberrie." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
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Show moreCaption: "Hieronymus, more generally known as St. Jerome, finished his Herculean task, the preparation of the "Edition of the Holy Scriptures in General Use", or the Vulgate Bible, in the year 414 A.D. Fourteen years were spent in reading and checking the innumerable texts in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The later language Jerome began to learn only at the age of forty. This Vulgate version of the bible is one of the most important ever compiled. It became the standard Bible of the western world for over a thousand years, although it required several hundred years to win the place it deserved. It gave birth to ecclesiastical Latin, the international language of the medieval world. Many of the existing letters of Jerome give us a picture not only of his violent temper, but also of the resulting controversies regarding his version of the Bible. In one, he called a critic a "two-legged ass", in another, he accused certain copyists of "being more asleep than a wake." With almost superhuman skill and patience, and without the aid of eyeglasses, the Dominicans produced a large number of these "Miniature" or "Portable" Bibles to be used in the Sorbonne, the newly established school of theology of the University of Paris, as well as by the wandering friars of this order. The well executed gothic book-hand of nine lines of writing to an inch was done with a crow or eagle quill. The vellum used was obtained from the internal organs of the newly born or calves and is finer than our present "india" paper. Four hundred leaves measured slightly less than an inch in thickness." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
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Show more"It has been the privilege of few human beings to enjoy the breadth and variety of personal experiences of life that were the lot of England's first great poet, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400). He was a page in the royal household, prisoner of war, foreign diplomat, collector of customs, member of Parliament and clerk of the King's works. His personal background and wide reading in Latin, French and Italian ("of bokes rede I ofte, as I you tolde") , is mirrored in his Canterbury Tales. According to Dryden, "The matter and the manner of these tales and of their telling are so suited to their different Education, Humor and Calling, that each would be improper in any other mouth". These tales represent almost every type of medieval literature: the pious tale, the saint's legend, the sermon, the metrical romance and the romantic epic. The Canterbury Tales is Chaucer's most famous and varied work. Troilus and Criseyde, the most finished work of Chaucer, is one of the finest narratives in the English language. The poem, while dealing with the unimportant event of the Trojan war, becomes a great psychological study of the dealing character, Troilus, son of King Priam, and of his love of his widow Criseyde. In mood, the work ranges from gay wit to tragic grief. Chaucer's Romaunt of the Roses is a masterful translation of the great French allegory of refined love. "Adam Islip printed in London from the year 1594 to 1603. His first edition of Chaucer?s work was issued in 1598. Many "reforms" and "improvements" were made in the second Islip edition, "Sentences and proverbs noted... obscure words prooued, the Latine and French not Englished by the Chaucer, translated". (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
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