Beschreibung:

The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes, compared by … Plutarke … Translated out of Greke into French by Iames Amiot … and out of French into English, by Thomas North.
London: Richard Field for Bonham Norton, 1595. Folio in 6s (310 x 215 mm). Woodcut publisher's device on the title page, the text of each biographical entry preceeded by a 'headpiece' composed of one or two woodcut portrait roundels within a decorative surround. Expertly rebound in calf using the majority of the contemporary calf covers and spine, the covers with central gilt-stamped arabesque surrounded by panels ruled in gilt and blind with four gilt corner fleurons, spine in seven compartments with raised bands, the bands flanked by pairs of fillets in blind, each compartment with repeat decoration in gilt, cloth joints, modern endpapers. Condition : title laminated onto a blank sheet, lower half of *2 laminated on recto, both leaves with some loss to blank margins, without *8, light old dampstain to lower blank margins, Rr5 with section lacking from lower blank margin, worm-track to lower blank margins of 3A5 to the end, final leaf with tears and slight loss to inner lower blank margin, various paper-fault tears. Provenance : William Clarke (early signature and two line marginal inscription on *3 verso). second edition in english of Plutarch's Parallel Lives : one of the most widely-read classical works during the Renaissance. North's translation in general, and probably this edition in particular, was William Shakespeare's most important source for his Roman plays. STC 20067