On Books.
Lysa, 2022,
First Edition. octavo, cloth in dust jacket. 488 pp. Lysa, Item #32706
Henri II Estienne (1531-98) was the most outstanding member of his family’s long-lived publishing dynasty. He continued the work of his father, Robert, by publishing many unedited Greek texts and completing the Thesaurus linguae Graecae (1572), an expensive venture from which his business never fully recovered. His versatility– as publisher, scholar, corrector, lexicographer and poet – can be seen in the paratextual material in his many editions, and in his own original works. This anthology presents a sample from Henri Estienne’s writings across his career and from different genres. These range from letters, to poetry, to essays, to his Encomium of the Frankfurt Fair. They reveal him as a remarkable scholar with an astonishing grasp of Latin and Greek literature, while highlighting also his problems both as a publisher and as a scholar. Estienne’s elaborate essays on the ancient Greek historians Xenophon and Herodotus use ancient examples to support contemporary arguments. His verses preserve a strong sense of the life of a scholar turned businessman, both at work and at play. In remarkably fluid Latin, Estienne reveals in these writings his aspiration to be worthy of his father’s legacy, his affection for family and friends, his humour, and his gripes with other scholars and publishers. "The editors have selected nine texts—a sort of tribute to Herodotus’ Muses—which are printed in the original Latin with facing-page English versions: To the Reader, On Combining the Muses with Mars, the Example of Xenophon, Defence of Herodotus, Printing’s Complaint, Letter about his Printing-House, The Frankfurt Fair, On Latin Wrongly Regarded as Suspect, To the Plato-loving Reader, and a Letter to his Son, Paul Estienne. Estienne’s wit and versatility are further attested by substantial Latin verse compositions that he included in his prefaces (Printing’s Complaint, Printing-House, Frankfurt Fair), as well as by four original Greek epigrams appended to his Muses and Mars essay. The notes contain both a brief apparatus fontium of classical sources, and fuller English glosses. The former appear under the left-hand texts, while the latter are cued to both the original Latin and the English translation. The volume concludes with concise bibliographies of primary and secondary sources, and indexes of literary citations and proper names." David Marsh, Rutgers University. Text in English and Latin.
Price: $45.00