Daphnis and Chloe. A Pastoral Novel Now First Selectly [sic] Translated into English from the Original Greek of Longus

Penzance: Printed for the Editor by T. Vigurs..., 1803. 12mo, 185 x 107 mms., pp. xiv [xv - 17] 18 - 265 [266 errata], including half-title, uncut, rebound in half chocolate brown calf, marbled boards, morocco labels, in 2000 by Hilaria Honess, Hayle, with a ms. note to that effect on the lower margin of the front paste-down end-paper, below the bookplate of Antony Charles Thomas. A very good copy. Set on the island of Lesbos, this is the only known work by the second century Greek author, Longus. It was first published in modern times, in 1559, in a French translation by Jacques Amyot. This English translation is by Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773–1858), It was noticed in The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine in 1803. The reviewer noted that the work had "undergone more translations than almost any production of ancient Greece." He or she adds that "selectly translated" is not good English, but that "the present translator evidently means, that he has purposely omitted certain passages in the original. As far, however, as we can judge, without comparing the translation with the original, the omissions are not to be lamented; and the reader, at all events, is made ample amends for them, by the addition of notes, many of which contain very judicious critical observations, and genuine humour." It was reviewed again the next year in The Monthly Review: "The anonymous author has done great justice to the elegant original, not only in what he has translated but in what he has omitted...; and, on comparing it with the original, we have much reasons for commending his industry and his talents." The translation is fulsomely dedicated to Robert Bloomfield.