The Comedies.: By T[homas]. Mitchell.

London: John Murray,, 1820-22. Mitchell's Aristophanes is excellent. - Send me the rest of it" (Byron) First Mitchell edition, handsomely bound and containing his translations of The Acharnians, Knights, and Wasps, as well as Richard Cumberland's translation of The Clouds (1798). "Mitchell was the first English translator to do justice to Aristophanes' metrical variety, and his editions, articles, and translations did much to spread interest in the author among later generations of scholars" (ODNB). It is scarce in commerce. Aristophanes was seldom read or translated in Britain prior to the 19th century, a trend reversed thanks to his hugely influential English translators Thomas Mitchell (1784-1845) and also John Hookham Frere (1769-1846). In an article in the Quarterly Review Frere described Mitchell's translation as "the best that has hitherto appeared in our own, or, as far as our acquaintance extends, in any other modern language" (p. 474). In 1813 Mitchell "commenced a series of articles in the Quarterly Review on Aristophanes and Athenian manners, the success of which subsequently induced him to undertake his spirited and accurate verse translation of Aristophanes" (ODNB). Upon receiving the first volume of this work, Byron wrote to the publisher John Murray: "Mitchell's Aristophanes is excellent. - Send me the rest of it" (p. 455). Two volumes, octavo (213 x 130 mm). Near-contemporary green sheep, red twin spine labels, raised bands dotted in gilt, compartments decorated in gilt, sides dyed in the manner of Spanish calf and ruled in gilt with a French fillet with flower-heads at corners, board edges gilt, twin fillets and floral roll to turn-ins gilt, edges gilt, green silk bookmarkers. Bound without vol. I half-title. Bookplate of Robert J. Hayhurst (1929-2016), an avid collector of naval history and of 18th-century literature in contemporary bindings. Bindings square and firm, spines and lower corner of vol. I front cover sunned, slight rubbing to lower extremities, light foxing and occasional browning, chiefly marginal. A very good copy. The Life, Letters, and Journals of Lord Byron, 1838; John Hookham Frere, "The Comedies of Aristophanes", Quarterly Review, vol. 23, no. 46, July 1820.