Thesaurus Linguae Romanae Britannicae

London: 1584., 1584. thick folio. text in double columns. unpaginated. lacking initial blank & without the 1584 colophon leaf. woodcut device on title. woodcut initials. modern quarter calf (repaired tear in q4 - no loss, small number rubberstamp at head of title, headlines occasionally shaved, small wormtrack through a few gatherings towards end). ms. inscription dated 1632 on last page. Cooper prepared his important Latin-English dictionary while headmaster of Magdalen College, drawing on the work of other lexicographers and in particular on the dictionaries of Sir Thomas Elyot and Robert Estienne. It was first published in 1565. Appended to the main text is an historical and poetical dictionary. The work soon became a standard reference and was probably used and consulted by Shakespeare and other Elizabethan poets and dramatists. So delighted with the dictionary was Queen Elizabeth that she promised to aid in the advancement of the author's career. Cooper was made dean of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1567, dean of Gloucester in 1569, bishop of Lincoln in 1571, and bishop of Winchester in 1584. Alden notes that the dictionary includes a definition and discussion of Guiacum, and in the Dictionarium historicum, a description of America as discovered by Vespucci. This copy is very interesting bibliographically as it contains the 'faked' title-page described in STC which reads 'Romanae Britannicae' rather than 'Romanae & Britannicae'. The STC estimates this leaf to have perhaps been printed after 1705. Apart from the title-leaf, the text is composed of sheets from different sixteenth century printings, the STC noting a number of such variants. See STC 5689 & Alden 584/16.. Hardcover. Very Good.