Odes and Epodes / Pages from Earlier Editions of Horace from the Beginnings of Printing to the Present Century by HORACE - 1961

New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1961. Hardcover. Edited by Louis Untermeyer. Complete 2-volume set in slipcase. 12mo and folio. Quarter tan cloth with gilt-lettered green calf spine labels and marbled paper over boards, 2-compartment slipcase with paper spine label. xxiv, 394pp; 6pp, (ca. 50pp). Numerous illustrations (Volume II only), marbled endpapers. Fine/near fine. Both volumes are bright and tight. Handsome LEC edition, the 10th title in their 29th series, with rear colophon noting limitation of 1500 numbered copies (this #241). These most famous of all odes -- short lyric poems first developed by the Greeks -- are far-ranging in topic and were first published in 23 B.C. (Books I-III), with Book IV published in 13 B.C. Smaller volume is a superb edition of side-by-side texts of the original poems in Latin alongside English translations by a "Who's Who" of translators that includes Samuel Johnson, John Dryden, William Congreve, Sir Philip Sidney, Eugene Field, Ben Jonson, Untermeyer himself and countless others. John T. Winterich introduces the slim larger volume of facsimiles, which are reproduced at actual size. Laid into this is an 8pp foldout "Upright and Stainless," a delightful bookolet that gives this best known of all Horace odes followed by seven translations by seven different notable translators; also laid in are the "Monthly Letter" and publisher's announcement card. A lovely set. NEWMAN 325.