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translations were referred to whenever an argument was made in favour of scholarly female education, and she is one of the “distin- guished women” featured in Mary Hay’s Female Biography (1803). There has been considerable confusion regarding the dating of Dacier’s translations, partly due to contemporary misattributions. Her Iliad , though often cited as first appearing in 1699, was in fact first published in 1711 (as confirmed by Julie Candler Hayes, the Folger Collective, and others). A second edition appeared in 1719, and “after her no one in France dared to translate Homer for half a century” (Grafton & others, p. 249), her translations remaining authoritative well into the early 20th century. See The Folger Collective on Early Women Critics, Women Critics 1660–1820: An Anthology , Indiana University Press, 1995; Grafton, Anthony, & others, The Classical Tradition , Harvard University Press, 2010; Hayes, Julie Candler, “Of Meaning and Moderni- ty: Anne Dacier and the Homer Debate”, Studies in Early Modern France 8: Strategic Rewriting, 2002; Weinbrot, Howard D., “Alexander Pope and Madame Dacier’s Homer”, Huntington Library Quarterly 62:1/2, 1999, pp. 1–23. £3,000 [128992] 50 (DACIER, Anne Lefèvre, tr.) HOMER. L’Odyssée [as previous item]. Paris: Rigaud, 1716 3 volumes, duodecimo (164 × 94 mm). Contemporary mottled calf, spine elaborately tooled in gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers, edges sprin- kled red, brown book markers. Engraved frontispiece to vol. I, engraved head- and tailpieces, initials. Near-contemporary ownership inscription to frontispiece verso and first blanks, recent ownership inscription to frontis- piece recto vol. I, and ink mark to front free endpaper verso. Contemporary manuscript slip of calculations loosely inserted at p. 310 of vol. II, a couple of black pieces of paper loosely inserted to vol. III. Spines and tips profes- sionally furbished, top edges dust toned, light foxing to contents, a couple of marks to margins; a very good set. first dacier edition of the Odyssey in an attractive contempo- rary binding. (See previous item.) £2,750 [130390]
3 volumes, duodecimo (160 × 91 mm). Contemporary mottled calf, flat spine lettered and tooled in gilt with elaborate floriate and scrollwork decoration, marbled endpapers and edges. Engraved frontispiece to vol. 1 depicting the war council outside Troy and 1 engraved plate depicting Homer facing p. 39, engraved head- and tailpieces, initials. Contemporary ownership inscrip- tion, “Ce livre apparitien[t] a firmin Barré” to initial blank of vol. 3, later inscription, “Dacier rue Traversière” to vol. 1 rear free endpaper recto. Heads of spines professionally repaired, vol. 1 title page and sig. a2 partly loose at gutter but firm, one short tear to fore edge of vol. 1 sig. G4, a tiny wormhole to the lower edge of vol. 3 book block, overall the contents evenly toned with the occasional spot or ink mark, else in very good condition. first dacier edition, a handsomely bound set of this influential work by the first female translator of Homer. This, her celebrated translation into French of the Iliad , is considered her “crowning achievement” (Folger, p. 34) alongside her equally successful trans- lation of the Odyssey (1716, see next item). The three volumes also comprise a 45-page life of Homer, copious explanatory notes, and extended prefaces in response to Homer’s critics. It cemented her place as arguably the foremost classical scholar of her day. Only daughter of the noted Hellenist Tanneguy Lefèvre, Anne Dacier ( c .1654–1720) began translating classical works from an early age, starting with Callimachus and progressing to versions of the poems of Anacreon and Sappho. In 1683 she married her father’s protégé André Dacier, who was a member of the French Academy and who also produced a number of translations, though acknowl- edged to be of inferior quality to his wife’s works. She was a staunch champion of Homer in the Ancients and Moderns debate, in which she defended his works against what she saw as the contemporary decline in standards of taste. Despite her literary feuds with fellow literary figures such as Antoine Houdar de la Motte and Thémiseul de Saint-Hyacinthe, and her differences in particular with Alexan- der Pope, with whom she fundamentally disagreed on how best to approach translating Homer, she was held in extremely high regard by her contemporaries and even those with whom she fell out with “demonstrably regarded her as the eminent authority she deserved to be” (Weinbrot, p. 1). Her professional accomplishments and fine
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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