Madden sir frederic ed (3 Ergebnisse)

Zustand: Fair. 1866. No Edition Remarks. 466 pages. This is an ex-Library book. Quarter bound in leather with cloth covered boards. Book has been rebound by library, with expected inserts, stamps and inscriptions. Vol. I. Noticeable staining, foxing and tanning to pages. More prominent to text block edges, pastedowns and free endpapers. Hinges are moderately cracked causing boards to be loose. Mild creasing to gutters. Boards have minor corner bumping and edgewear with mild chipping, tanning and scuffing overall. Spine has heavier tanning with soft crushing to ends. Book has a slight forward lean.…

Zustand: Good. 1866. No Edition Remarks. 511 pages. This is an ex-Library book. Quarter bound in leather with cloth covered boards. Book has been rebound by library, with expected inserts, stamps and inscriptions. Vol. II. Latin text. Minor foxing and tanning to pages. Visibly more prominent to text block edges, pastedowns and free endpapers. Light cracking and creasing to gutters but binding remains firm; heavier to front hinge. Boards have minor corner bumping and edgewear with mild chipping, tanning and scuffing overall. Spine has heavier tanning with soft rubbing and crushing to ends. Lettering remains bright and clear. Book has a slight forward lean.…

8vo (154 x 258 mm). 3 volumes. LIII, (3), 439, (1) pp. (4), 643 pp. (4), 659 pp. With a folding engraved plate of MS Cotton Caligula A. ix. Publisher's blue grey paper covered boards with printed spine labels. A rare first printing of the earliest modern edition of La amon's Brut, the first work in English to tell the tales of King Arthur and his knights. Although its contents are legendary rather than historical, it also represents the first large-scale text devoted to Britain's past to be composed in English (sometime between c. 1190 and c. 1215) since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. - The poem survives in only two manuscripts, BL Cotton Caligula A. IX and Otho C. XIII, whose often rather different readings are presented in here parallel columns. A modern English translation is at the bottom of the page, and comprehensive notes and a glossary at the end of Vol. III. Madden's preparation of the text was the first modern edition of La amon's work, and stands as a milestone in the scholarship of early Middle English. - La amon based his text largely on the Roman de Brut, written in Old French by the Norman poet Wace in c. 1155. Wace was in turn inspired by the Historia regum Brittaniae (History of the Kings of Britain) by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which was a sensational success in introducing the "Matter of Britain" (i.e. the Arthurian and associated legends) to the European literary consciousness. La amon's achievement was not merely introducing this material in English, but expanding it: at over 16,000 lines, it is longer than the work of Wace or Geoffrey, and treats the legend of Arthur at greater length. - The poem begins with a description of La amon's wish to write the history of England and the sources he used, naming Bede, St Alban, St Augustine of Canterbury and Wace. From there it passes to the mythical tale of Brutus of Troy, a descendant of Aeneas who supposedly settled in Britain and gave it its name and continues up through the Arthurian material to the historical British king Cadwalla, whose defeat in battle by St Oswald, King of Northumbria, is recorded by Bede in 634. In spite of La amon's stated desire to write England's history, the focus is overwhelmingly on the Celtic Britons. - The language of the poem is a striking example of Middle English in its earlier stages, a little over a century after the Norman Conquest of 1066 put an end to Old English as a written standard, a position it had held since the reign of Alfred the Great in the ninth century, and the introduction of French as the language of the ruling class. La amon uses the older English alliterative form of verse rather than French-style rhyme, and his vocabulary is notably native, with only some 150 French loan-words appearing in the text. - At the time of Madden's work, all of Europe was turning to the medieval past to reach an understanding of the origins of nationhood and its connections to language: ascertaining a time at which the fusion of Old English and Old French produced something which might be seen as the beginnings of modern English went hand-in-hand with developing an origin-story for the English nation. Walter Scott's phenomenally successful, but wildly historically inaccurate novel Ivanhoe of 1819 had already captured the public's imagination on this question. In his introduction, Madden argues that the English language had been changing for some time before the Norman Conquest, which itself added effectively little into the mix, and drawing on the poem as an illustration of a stage in the history of English which he calls "Semi-Saxon". - Long the standard and reprinted many times, first printings of Madden's edition of La amon, particularly ones in good condition, are highly rare on the market, with Rare Book Hub listing the last three sales of copies in 2021, 1971 and 1957. - A fine copy of a landmark work in the history of the English language and of medieval literature. - Light wear to board edges and extremities, some webbing visible at outer joints. Some occasional foxing, but interior overwhelmingly clean and crisp, to all appearances unread. A good, unrestored copy. - All three volumes stamped inside with the name of Gerald M. Bordman (1931-2011), American musical and theatre historian who did his PhD in medieval literature.…