Caractacus. Karaktakos epi mone. Sive Cl. Masoni Caractacus græco carmine redditus cum versione latina. A Georgio Henrico Glasse

Oxonii: E Typogapheo Clarendoniano 1781. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, 212 x 120 mms., pp. [viii], 218 [ 219 Errata, 220 blank], fine contemporary calf, spine ornately gilt to a cornucopia motif, Greek key border on covers, marbled end-papers; slight wear to joints and top and base of spine, but a very good copy. The poet and garden designer William Mason(1725 - 1797) published his historical tragedy Caractacus in 1759. This translation into Greek by George Henry Glasse was well received when it was published, with The Monthly Review singing its praises: "There are few works, which the Authors of the Monthly Review have perused with more pleasure and surprise than Mr. Glasse's translation of Mason's Caractacus. They consider it a performance that reflects honour on the Author, and the seminary in which he was educated. Since the revival of letters, there has never, perhaps, appeared in this kingdom, so wondrful a composition in the Greek language.... [W]e cannot help observing that Mr. Glasse could, in no other manner, have acquired so intimate an acquaintance with the phraseology of the Greek language, nor such a knowledge of its copiousness and unbounded variety." Mason's original publication in 1759 proved to be adaptable to many forms, for example, as a play performed in London, then adapted to a French opera in Paris (Arvire et Évélina,1788) before it returned to London as Évélina, or the Triumph of the British over the Romans in 1797 in Da Ponte's Italian translation. ESTC T96581 locates copies three copies in the BL, one in Chetham's Library in Manchester, five in Oxford colleges, and one each in University of London, St. Deiniol's, and York; one in Amersterdam; and Boston College, the University of Texas, and two in Yale