Author: [Homer] Blackwell, Thomas:

Title: An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer.

Publication: London: Printed [for J. Oswald], 1736.

Description: Second edition. 8vo., pp.[iv], 346, [lxxxii] + portrait frontispiece and folding map. Single leaf catalogue at rear. Many illustrations and elaborate engraved head- and tail-pieces in the text. Very faint dampstaining to bottom corner, offsetting from some illustrations. Contemporary brown calf, gilt spine with raised bands and title label, plain gilt borders. Worn, endcaps lost, joints split but cords holding, corners frayed, endpapers toned at edges, a good sound copy.

The second edition of this pioneering study. 'Blackwell considered why Homer had been the supreme epic poet and concluded that his achievement was explicable almost entirely in terms of natural forces. Homer was the outcome of a specific historical context, social organization, geography, and climate, which combined to shape the culture he represented and which provided an ethos uniquely favourable to epic poetry' (ODNB).

Bibliography: ESTC T70409.

Reference Number: [54906]

Price: £150

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