Aeliani Variae Historiae libri XIII.

Bookseller Notes

A good, exquisitely bound, clean copy of this pocket-size textbook for the study of Greek language and history. Claudius Aelianus (1st-2nd century AD) was a very popular author at 16th- and 17th-century English universities. Extant solely in abridged form, his Variae Historiae is a compendium of fascinating anecdotes on famous ancient literary, philosophical and political personalities, the natural world, mirabilia, customs and myths. He famously provided one of the earliest accounts of fly-fishing. A final section of this edition, edited by Justus Vultejus (1529-75), comprises extracts from Aristotle's 'Politeiai' an account of the history and organization of over 100 Greek city-states. The work only survives in fragmentary form, in a 2nd-century epitome by Heraclides Lambus, and is most often found as an appendix to Aelian, following the most common manuscript tradition. The exquisite contemporary binding fresh and unsophisticated bears a blind-stamped centrepiece, here in fine impression, found in Oxford c.1580?-1620 (Pearson, p.78), with the typical diagonal hatching on the spine and edges. It was in the library of Robert Wallis, who probably matriculated at Balliol College in 1602-3, and was awarded a BA in 1607-8 and an MA in 1611. He was later rector in Buckinghamshire, his native county. Wallis most probably witnessed the arrival of Christopher Angelus, a Greek exile from the Turks. After some time at Cambridge, he moved to Balliol in 1610; there, 'he became celebrated as a teacher of Greek, and his popularity was much increased by the scars, which he would display as a proof of his sufferings' (pp.114-15). Illinois, Columbia, Newberry, Huntington, UPenn and Newberry copies recorded in the US. Hoffmann I, p.9 (earlier or later eds). Not in Dibdin or Moss. Alumni Oxonienses (1891); H.W.C. Davis, Balliol College (1899); D. Pearson, Oxford Bookbinding (2000).