First edition of a whimsical but erudite treatise ‘first read at the meeting of a Literary Society in Exeter’, where members included Richard Polwhele. After initial scepticism, Hole’s research led him to conclude the narratives had a basis in fact. Hole went on to write a parallel work on Homer, a fragment of which was published posthumously as An Essay on the Character of Ulysses (1807). ‘Hole displays a considerable if curious erudition in illustrating the monsters and marvels encountered by the two Mediterranean travellers’, and his ‘imaginative reconstructions of exotic places and pagan beliefs anticipated much later romantic fabling’ (Oxford DNB).

Richard Hole (1746-1803), son of a canon of Exeter Cathedral, was a clergyman, poet and local antiquary; his best-known work, Arthur, or, the Northen Enchantments (1789), a romance in seven books, attempted to do for the West Country what Ossian had done for Scotland.

You may also be interested in...

JACOBITE PRINTER AND FRIEND OF SWIFT [CURLL, Edmund, and others].

An impartial History of the Life, Character, Amours, Travels, and Transactions of Mr. John Barber, City-Printer, Common-Councilman, Alderman, and Lord Mayor of London. Written by several Hands.

First edition. A fine specimen of the sort of obituary pamphlet issued by Edmund Curll almost immediately after the death of notable public figures.

Read more

LEWIS, Wyndham.

America, I Presume.

First edition, Lewis’s first impressions of America after his abrupt departure thence in September 1939. He was to remain in North America for the duration of World War WII.

Read more