1798 Athenian Letters: Or, The Epistolary Correspondence of An Agent of the King of Persia, Residing at Athens During the Peloponnesian War

Description

Folding Maps, Illustrated, Leather Binding

A delightfully bound two volume edition of this collaboratively produced work of Ancient Greek history and geography, first published in 1741 by a circle of authors surrounding Charles and Philip Yorke, with the authorship for a long time being kept a well guarded secret.

This was the first illustrated edition of the work, featuring fourteen plates of portraits, and a folding map of Greece. Collated, complete.

Subtitled 'The Epistolary Correspondence of An Agent of the King of Persia Residing at Athens During the Peloponnesian War', this work takes the form of a commentary in a series of letters on the Athenian historian and general, Thucydides.

The Yorke brothers planned the production of this work while at university, anonymously involving Thomas Birch, Henry Coventry, John Green, Samuel Salter, Catherine Talbot, Daniel Wray, George Henry Rooke, John Heaton, John Lawry, and William Heberden.

With the contemporary owner's inscription of Wm. C. Grove to a front endpaper of volume I.

Retaining the original half titles. ESTC reference no. T84382

A lovely edition of this curious eighteenth century work providing a detailed yet manufactured account of the Peloponnesian war.